Zocchihedron
by illman
Summary: A serial killer, zocchihedra, a missing girl, Zorro references, Terry’s exhusband, fairy tales, riddles, elderberry wine and a golden ball. GEN, WIP.
1. December 24, 2005 Prologue

_Title: Zocchihedron_

_Author: Illman_

_Category: gen, h/c, casefile_

_Rating: FRT-13_

_Beta: Wish I had one, but I don't. All the grammar mishaps and misspellings are my own. Feel free to point out if I butchered the English language too badly._

_Date: 9/10/05_

_Feedback: All comments are appreciated. Flame if you must, I have heard it all._

_Warnings: violence, darkfic, drug use, language_

_Disclaimer: It's their universe, not mine._

_Summary: A serial killer, zocchihedra, a missing girl, Zorro references, Terry's ex-husband, fairy tales, riddles, __elderberry_ _wine and a golden ball. GEN, WIP. _

Author's Notes: _As with __fic written for any__ show which is still shooting episodes, everything is bound to be blown out of the water by the next episode. Anyways, this story is set in season 1. I have not managed to see all the episodes, but I tried to read up on the missing ones as much as possible. Anything scientific, mathematical, historical, medical, legal and procedural is researched to the best of my abilities. But since an armchair degree doesn't replace actual knowledge and experience, let me know if I have made any glaring errors._

Prologue

December 24, 2005

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles

Alan Eppes blindly selected a bouquet of flowers from the small selection at the hospital's gift shop. In the last minute, it had occurred to him that he should bring something, anything. The flowers were thoughtless and cheap, they had definitely seen better days, but after all, it was the thought that counted. Alan paid and headed past the gigantic Christmas tree towards the elevator. He shouldn't be here today, he thought. He should be home with his sons. But there weren't there, not anymore. He couldn't stand the big empty house, so he had come here. He had thought about volunteering at the shelter on short notice, he was sure they could use someone over the holidays, but it felt wrong spending Christmas with strangers. He chided himself for the thought, the people who came to the shelter were alone as well, they had no one to spend the holidays with either, but he didn't feel he could help others when he was struggling with his own grief. For a moment, he wondered whether it had even been a good idea to come here, maybe it would make everything worse; maybe she didn't even want to see him. After all, his son...But now he was here. Before his doubts could take hold, he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the sixth floor.

The nurses' station on the sixth floor was decorated with a miniature Christmas tree, complete with tinsel. Margaret had loved tinsel. Christmas had never been the same since his wife had died, but he had never imagined spending it without his sons.

He walked the corridors until he approached room 608. A uniformed police man sat in a chair next to the door. When Alan approached, he looked up, and then he nodded.

Alan knocked, but didn't wait for a reply.

He entered and closed the door softly behind himself.

There were two beds in the room, but only one was occupied. Terry was lying on her side, face to the window. Alan carefully stepped closer, not sure whether she was sleeping or not.

"Agent Lake?" He asked in a low voice.

He got no reply, but the rustling of fabric told him that Terry was awake. He stepped around the bed, ready to leave if Terry made it clear that she didn't want to see him.

Terry didn't move when he approached her. She stayed frozen, legs pulled up to her body, staring motionless out of the window into the grey December sky. She seemed unnaturally pale, her complexion bringing out the colourful bruises on her face and neck even more. One eye was still almost swollen shut and bandage ran from the side of her forehead, down her left temple, disappearing into her hair. Her eyes were reddened, looking like she had cried. She had her arms wrapped around herself, her right arm encased in a pink Fiberglas cast.

Not sure what to do, Alan cast around for a vase to put in his flower, only to discover that his bouquet by far was not the only one, but was overshadowed by far fresher looking flowers. The table in the room sported several vases full of flowers, along with cards, most likely from her fellow agents at the field office. Alan moved to the sink, where he had spotted a vase and took care of his flowers. Torn between leaving and staying, he decided to quietly leave since Terry didn't seem to be in the mood for company, at least not for his company. But when he opened the door to leave, Terry's voice sounded from the bed.

"Mr Eppes?"

"Agent Lake? How are you?" Alan walked back to Terry's bedside, but didn't sit down.

"Thank you for the flowers." She ignored his question and tried to sit up in bed, the effort obviously costing her. "Mr Eppes, I'm sorry about your sons. Both of them. You shouldn't have to go through that. No one should. We'll find out what happened to Charlie."

Alan nodded and turned to the window himself.

"I never saw it in Don. As a father I should have known. He is my son."

"Don't blame yourself Mr Eppes. I never saw it coming either. I knew he had been under a lot of pressure lately, but I'm a forensic psychologist and didn't see any signs. Family and friends rarely do. Some of the most notorious serial murderers were well respected members of the community."

"I just don't understand it." Alan shook his head. "I thought I knew Don."

"We all thought we did." Terry nodded. "But we don't know exactly what happened, Mr Eppes. There are still some questions. That's why we need to find your son. He might be able to tell us what really happened that night." Terry's voice was a little unsteady. The memory of what had happened must be terrifying for her, Alan thought.

"I wish I could help you, Agent Lake, but I have already told the FBI all I know." Alan said.

Terry stared into nothing.

"I'm sorry I can't help you." Alan said ready to leave.

"Would you mind staying for a bit?" Terry asked softly.

Alan complied silently. They had both lost someone dear to them. The holidays were no occasion for joy, just a bitter reminder of what they had lost.

TBC


	2. December 14, 2005 Part 1

_December 14, 2005 - Part 1_

_December 14, 2005_

_Terry Lake's Apartment, Los Angeles _

Terry Lake was woken by the ringing of her cell phone which always rested within easy reach of her bed. Eyes still closed, her hand found the phone with one sure movement and she pressed on the button to receive the call. Rolling over, she held the phone to her ear.

"Yes?" She answered, expecting someone from the FBI calling her with an urgent case that couldn't wait. But no one replied. All she heard were raspy breaths over the line.

"Who is this?" She asked, shedding the remnants of sleep.

There was a click. The caller had hung up. This was not the first time. In the last month she had received at least two calls a week, where the caller had simply hung up without saying a word. But he had always called in the evening. Never that early in the morning. Terry put her phone down. She hadn't told anyone yet. She knew that getting a trace on her phone would be pointless. The calls were too short. Besides even if they got the guy, there were no threats, no obscenities, the DA would laugh at them if they tried to push this one for harassment. She'd be better off simply changing her cell phone number.

Terry looked at her alarm clock. 4.42 a.m. She could sleep for another hour and a half before she had to get ready for the office. But the call had unsettled her more than she wanted to admit, even to herself. She sat up, burying any thoughts of sleep. Instead she got up and slipped into a pair of grey sweatpants, a dark blue tee shirt grabbed her mp3-player and went to get her jogging shoes. She put on her shoes and was already on her way out of the door, when she turned back, and recovered her gun from where she had left it the previous evening. Strapping on a shoulder holster and donning a light grey sweat jacket to conceal her weapon, she left the house for her morning run.

oOo

_December 14, 2005_

_Don Eppe's Apartment, Los Angeles_

Don Eppes was filling the coffee machine when his phone rang. Putting down the jug of water, he reached for the phone.

"Eppes."

"It's DeWinter. You're needed at a scene. DB at the Maguire Gardens. LAPD got there first; they are waiting there for you. I told forensics to wait for you."

"Got it. I'm on my way." He hung up. His coffee would have to wait until he got to the office. He quickly grabbed a tie and a jacket, fetched his gun and a city map and was out the door.

oOo

_December 14, 2005_

_Maguire Gardens, Los Angeles_

Sky Free recreational area was a modern park, stretching around the Free Sky sports arena. It was still early and few parking lots were filled when Don pulled put to the east entrance of the park. Several police cars were parked in the big lot, as well as the van from the forensics crew. Seeing a uniformed officer standing at the gate, Don rolled down his window.

"Don Eppes, I'm with the FBI." He showed his credentials. "Where can I find the officer in charge?"

"That would be Detective Weider. I'm afraid you'll have to walk to the scene; it's in a heavily wooded area. But it's not far from here. If you park your car here, and just walk this way up, you'll find it. We have secured a large area around the body; you'll see it from the walkway."

Don did as the officer had told him and parked his car. Indeed the yellow crime scene tape squared off a sizable area beginning a few meters behind the walkway with its border somewhere behind the trees. He ducked under the tape and headed for the woods. The scene couldn't be too far off, as he already heard mumbled voices in the distance. Sooner than he thought, he stepped out into a clearing, populated with crime scene technicians and police officers. One of the officers spotted him and came heading for him, clearly thinking he was an onlooker, but when Don flashed his badge at the young woman, she forced a smile.

"I'm sure you want to talk to Detective Weider?"

"Yes, I heard he is the officer in charge."

"I guess, he was the officer in charge now that the FBI is on the case." The dislike in the woman's voice was obvious.

Don ignored her and followed her to officer Weider, a man in his fifties, who was talking to another officer.

"Detective Weider? I'm Special Agent Don Eppes with the FBI. I understand you called the FBI in on this case."

"Morning' Agent. Yes, I called for the Bureau's help with this case. At first we thought this was just a random murder, mugging gone bad. But then, we found something. Let me show you." Detective Weider motioned for Don to follow him. At the other end of the clearing, they stopped. Weider pointed to a tree.

"Look at this. We found the same symbol at another crime scene. A homicide just like this one, exact same MO. Happened a month ago. We have no leads. We weren't sure the symbol meant anything, or was at all related to the case, but we I saw it here; I knew it wasn't an accident. This is just the beginning, Agent Eppes." Detective Weider said gloomily.

Don looked at the symbol. It looked a bit like a 'Z' with a running through it from top to bottom.

"This could just be a gang tag. There has been quite a bit of recent gang activity in the area. Could just be someone marking their turf."

"We checked with organized crime, didn't match anything in their database. Besides, we found the same thing at the first crime scene, all the way up in North Beach in **Palisades Park **. A gang turf isn't that big."

Don had to agree. "Any idea as to what it means?"

"None yet. We dug up all sorts of sorts of things for 'Z', but nothing for this? Besides, we are not even sure it's supposed to be a 'Z'." Weider shrugged. "It's all yours now."

They walked back to the centre of the large clearing. The chair was chilly on the December morning, the sun was still working its way up to the horizon, but no one took notice of the early hour.

"Hi Don!" Don turned around and saw David come out of the underbrush. "Sorry, I couldn't get here earlier. I parked at the wrong entrance and I to walk all the way over here. Took me a while to get here. What have I missed?"

"Not much, I have just talked to Detective Weider, I'll fill you in later. Have you heard from Terry?"

"No, why should I?"

"Just asking, it's not like her to be late." Don said, before turning back to the homicide detective. "Where is the body?"

"Oh, sorry. Over there." David and Don followed Weider. In the middle of the clearing was the body of an older man, fifties to sixties, Don guessed. From the smell and the insects, he could tell the man had been dead more than a night. He hated dead bodies.

"We don't know who he is yet. Had no ID, no wallet, nothing on him. Except this" Weirder pulled out an evidence bag and gave it to Don. Inside it was a golf ball sized sphere which had the numbers 1 to 100 written over it.

"He was covered with this." Weider pointed to a large piece of olive tarp, lying in the grass a few feet from the body. The dog a jogger found him. She's over there. She removed the tarp."

"I'll go and talk to her." David offered.

"Good. Has the ME had a look at him?"

"No, we are still waiting for your guy. No one has touched him yet. They told us to leave everything until your people came here." Weider said.

"Thanks." I'll call and see where he's taking so long. Don pulled out his cell to call Dr. Sabello.

oOo

_December 14, 2005_

_6 Blocks from Terry Lake's Apartment, Los Angeles_

Terry leaned over panting. Her legs were burning. She had been going far too fast and she knew it. Gasping for breath, she wiped a hand across her forehead. She felt spent, but the tension she had felt earlier in the morning was gone. She reached her hands down to the ground, stretching the muscles in her legs.

She noticed the car only when it stopped right next to her. Snapping back to a standing position, she was instantly on alert. Then she recognized the driver and her face resolved into an annoyed scowl. The man flashed her a smile and rolled down the window.

"Terry, it's great to see you again. How have you been?"

"It's been great. Without you. What do you want?" Terry came right down to the point.

"Why would I think that I want anything? I tell you, that job of yours has made you paranoid. Even now, I can see you carrying your gun. I just wanted to see you again, talk to you." Peter Matthews smiled gently at his ex-wife.

"What is it?"

"Can't we talk over breakfast? There is a great place not far from here, we can drive there, eat and talk. I'm serious Terry."

"I have a job, if you haven't forgotten, Peter."

"It's still early. You can have breakfast before you have to leave for the office. Besides, they'll call you when they need you."

"I forgot my cell at home, I really should get it. Besides, I'm not sure we have anything to talk about." Terry wavered.

"Please, just hear me out. It's important. I wouldn't be asking you if it wasn't. Please, Terry."

"All right, I'll listen to what you have to say, but that's all." Terry conceded.

"Come on, get into the car."

"All right, but if this is one of your games, I'm out of here." Terry opened the passenger door and got into the car.

TBC


	3. December 14, 2005 Part 2

December 14, 2005 - Part 2

Dr. Sabello came jogging out of the underbrush, red faced and panting, carrying a large bag in each hand. Before wasting any time on greetings, he just merely remarked: "A description of the crime scene would have been nice; it would have spared me and the coroner a good forty-five minutes. The coroner is still driving around to the east entrance, apparently the only place accessible by car, in this ill designed cage." He continued to rant under his breath as he approached the body, carefully examining it for external injuries. Don and Weider watched in horrid fascination. It was a part of their job they would have to live with but would never really get used to.

Dr. Sabello rolled John Doe's body back on its back.

"From what I can tell now, no external injuries, at least nothing major. He wasn't shot or stabbed to death. However, what I could detect what that the first and second vertebrae of his neck are most likely broken. Post or ante-mortem, I can't tell you yet." Dr. Sabello directed their attention to the victim's neck. "Although it's not as clearly visible as it would be on a fresh body, the insects had already made him their home, this man's throat was slashed. I need to get this cleaned up before I can get you more about the type of weapon used."

"Any sign, he fought back, doctor?"

"Some." Dr. Sabello, held one of the body's hands up. "There is some dried blood on the skin. But that could be from other injuries. But you see the bruising and tearing around his wrists. I'd say he was restrained by the killer."

"Might explain why he didn't fight back." Weider considered.

"I know you can't give us an answer to this, but just an estimate, how long has he been out there?"

"Between 72 and 36 hours, roughly. That's just my first estimate. I'll need to see how the insects I collected from the body develop and then retrace the timeframe, taking into account the exact weather conditions here in the park. Of course, it gets more complicated if he has been moved after death."

"Has he?" Don asked.

"Definitely, not immediately after death though but the rest depends on whether he had the body stashed in a cool basement or the humid back of his truck. It's hard to tell with all these variables. But there are other ways of finding an approximate time of death, Agent."

"How, if you are lacking all these variables?" David, who had finished interviewing the woman who had found the body, joined them and laughed. Right now, Don reminded him just too much of his younger brother.

"I didn't know you had an interest in forensics, Agent. In this case we'll probably take a sample of a liquid found within the eye, vitreous humour and examines it's potassium level. It declines after death relatively independent of outside conditions and we can compare the value we get from John Doe here to standard values from the database. It won't be exact though. The margin of error is still large for this test, but it will give us an idea."

"Thanks, let us know as soon as you have something, right?"

"Of course, Agents, Detective." The ME left the scene followed by the corpsmen carrying John Doe's body to the coroner's van.

Don turned to David. "Anything from the woman who found the body?"

"Nothing. She said she was jogging with her dog like she does every day, but she alternates routes. She hadn't been along here in a while. It's against park regulation but she didn't keep her Doberman leashed. Apparently never does. It ran off into the woods, when it didn't come out again, she followed and found the body. Said she only moved the tarp to see what her dog had found and then called 911."

"Everything checks out then?

"Yes, we have a DB in Maguire Gardens, preliminary cause of death a broken neck or a slit throat, motifs would include robbery, we found no wallet, no keys, his car if he had one is missing." David summed up their progress to far.

"Yeah, and we also have the symbols 'Z' carved into a tree and this weir ball found on our John Doe. Could be a message from the killer. We need to hit the file, find out about the first case that the LAPD investigated that supposedly had such similarities that they called us in on the case. And we need more from forensics, but Dr. Sabello said this probably isn't going to happen. Cases were the body has been moved after death are tricky."

David nodded. "I'll talk to the park administrator. If someone got a dead body in here, they must have had access to the park with a vehicle. But I read their morning that only park service vehicles are permitted inside the park. I'll get a list of all people who had access to a park service vehicle or a key to open the gates at night.

oOo

_December 14, 2005_

_Betty's Diner, Los Angeles_

Despite the early hour, there was no shortage of patrons at the small diner. Terry and Peter entered through the glass door and walked by the stretched out bar into the back of the diner, before settling down in a booth at the far end. There, they could talk in relative privacy.

The windows were greasy and the light filtered in softly onto the matte sliver tables and red pleather upholstery.

"So, why did you ask me here?" Terry asked after they had both gotten settled.

"Let's get something to drink first. It will be my treat." Peter smiled and waived for a waitress.

A girl of about twenty-five years approached their table, yawning as she got out her note-block.

"Good morning!" She said perkily. "What can I get you today?"

"I'll have the breakfast special." Peter ordered. "What about you, sweetheart?" He turned to Terry.

Terry suppressed a growl at the endearment. "I'll have coffee, black and a croissant, with butter, please."

"All right. Thank you very much. Your order will be right up." The girl noted their orders and thanked them.

When she was out of ear shot, Terry turned back to Peter.

"Now, what is this all about Peter?" Terry couldn't help feeling suspicious. Her ex-husband had not contacted her in over two years and all of a sudden he showed up in person, with no prior warning, something had to be going on. Peter had a gift for getting what he wanted, that she had learned during the four years they had been married. But she had also learned to see when she was being played. And this time, she vowed, she was not going to fall for one of Peter's tricks, no matter how charming he was.

"Terry. It's been two years. We have a lot of catching up to do. Is it so hard to fathom that I just want to know how you are doing?"

"Something just tells me that you haven't come all the way from Chicago just to find out how I'm doing." Terry remained cautious. Peter was going to tell her what was really going on, sooner or later.

"I'm no longer in Chicago. I resigned from my job at DexaPharm. I have been in the city for almost a year now."

That stunned Terry. Not that she had expected her ex-husband to keep in contact. When they had separated they had both been clear that they wanted to move on, but now that she knew he had been in the same city all along, she was surprised that she hadn't contacted him sooner.

"Jason died last month." Peter looked out the window.

"I'm sorry" Terry didn't feel it. "Did you move back to LA because of him?"

"Yes, he wanted to be closer to his family as he got worse..." Peter broke off.

Terry's stomach clutched in evil foreboding.

"Terry, Jason had AIDS. He didn't know he had it until he got sick." Peter look at her.

"What about you Peter? You have gotten a test, right?" Terry couldn't bear to think of the consequences.

"I got tested as soon as he told me. I'm positive. I'm not sick yet and I'm getting treatment to delay to outbreak of the disease as long as possible." Peter took her hand.

Terry thought she couldn't ask the question, but she knew she needed to know the answer.

"How long has it been going on with Jason?"

When Peter didn't answer, she squeezed his hand. "Peter, I need an honest answer on this."

"Jason and I met in college. Roommates in sophomore year. We didn't sleep together back then, not in those times. Then I went to England and lost sight of him. I only met him again when I started working for Dexa in Chicago, he was working in the marketing department. We met by accident in the cafeteria. Otherwise I'd never found out that he was back in Chicago. This time, this time, we immediately hit it off."

"When Peter? When did you and Jason get together?" She shook, whether with fear or anger she didn't know.

"Just before our second anniversary. I'm sorry I lied to you, Terry. I know I always told you that Jason and I met after we were already separated, but the truth is, we have been seeing each other for quite a time while we were still together."

"You're sorry!" Terry was stunned. "That's it?"

"I know I should have told you earlier. But I didn't want the divorce to be any uglier than necessary. I didn't want to drag my relationship with Jason into this."

"Peter, this is not about the divorce. But Jason died of AIDS and you are infected. If you and Jason have been sleeping together while we were married, I realize what that means for me?" Terry was filled with barely contained anger, burning away any fear she felt.

"Neither of us knew he was infected, we only found out when he got sick. That's when I got tested, about a year ago." Peter confessed.

"A year! That's when you should have come to me. I needed to know that." Terry's voice trembled. Anger about Peter's betrayal and irrational fear were raging inside her, threatening to escape.

"I'm coming to you now Terry. I need your help!" Peter pleaded, but Terry had already left her seat. She needed to be alone now to process the potentially devastating information that she had just received. She couldn't think with Peter still around. She stormed past empty tables, pushed open the frosted glass doors, stepped out in the street and started running again. The quick start startled her muscles and tugged at her lungs, driving up her heat rate and sending burning pain into her legs as she sped towards her home.

oOo

_December 14, 2005_

_Maguire Gardens, Los Angeles_

The administrative buildings were beautifully crafted of wood and stone and stood out on a wide field of gravel next to the front entrance of the park. Don pulled up at the side of the parking lot and he and David got and headed for the building. Finding only one entrance, they entered the visitor's centre, a mixture of gift shop and small museum about the park's history and its flora.

An elderly woman sat behind the cashier's desk, reading a worn book, she looked up when the agents entered.

"Gentlemen, welcome to Maguire Gardens. Is there anything I cam help you with?"

"Yes, actually there is ma'am," David said and showed her his badge. "We are with the FBI and need to talk to the park's administrator."

"Oh god. Did something happen? Leeta isn't in yet. She never comes in before ten, sometimes not before eleven. She always works late. Did something happen to Leeta?"

"Leeta who?

"Um, Leeta Raphael, the park administrator. So you're not here about her?"

"No, we're not." Don answered, entering the conversation. "I was looking at this map here. Does it show all the trails in the park?"

"It shows all trails that are either paved or gravelled."

"Good, I'll take one of them then. How much are they?"

"$5 each. Thank you." The lady pulled a map and put in into a bag with the park logo. Don took the bag and paid.

David at the watching the exchange.

"Now, can you give me Miss Raphael's number please?"

"Sure." The lady took a piece of paper and jotted down the phone number. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Maybe. At night, the gates to the park are locked, right?"

"Yes, Mr Romanez closes them personally every night. He should be here already, should I page him for you?"

"No, no, we have already talked to Mr Romanez. He had assured as that during the day, the gates are only opened for visitors on foot."

"That's right. We only open them all the way for our cars, if we need to transport equipment or supplies. Sometimes the gardeners bring their truck. Is this about those homeless people sneaking in again? We had a problem with them a few years ago. Made themselves at home down by the lake."

"No, I can assure you, this has nothing to do with homeless people. But we do need a list of everybody who has access to the keys for the gates." Don requested.

"And we need any surveillance footage that you have of the entrance areas from the previous four days."

oOo

_December 14, 2005_

_Terry Lake's Apartment, Los Angeles_

Terry only stopped running when she reached the front door of her apartment block. Her hands trembled and she dropped the key once before she managed to unlock the door. Taking two a step, she climbed up the stairs to her third floor apartment. Her panic only eased a little when she finally let herself slide to the floor along the wall next to the door. She wrapped her arms around her knees to stop herself from shaking. 'Calm down' she told herself, but her heart was still racing and her thoughts were going a mile a minute. What if she was infected as well? What she was going to do? What could she do?

She bit back a sob. She was not supposed to crack. Peter wasn't supposed to have that kind of power over her. She had sworn never to cry over him again. When she had left Chicago, she had thought she'd never see him again. She had suspected that Peter liked men, but that hadn't been what had driven them apart. They had been young, he'd been working at his thesis at Midwestern University and she had been on her first FBI posting. The job had been tougher than she had expected. After Quantico, she had thought she was ready for anything, but looking back now, she realized how naive she had been. Training was critical, but nothing could replace actual field experience. Peter had been wholly absorbed by his work. In the beginning passion had made up for the lack of time and common interests between them, but they had soon started to drift and after the two years, Terry had known that Peter had changed, he was emotionally cold, except when it was about his work, then he was downright aggressive. She had started to question what had attracted her to Peter, what had made her fall in love and made her want to spend her life with him. For a long time she had thought it was Peter's work that made him such an egoistic and disinterested man, but only towards the end of their marriage had she contemplated that there might be another woman in Peter's life. She had not wanted to know, she had shut her eyes to all the clues that were out in the open. Deep down she had long suspected, even known that Peter hadn't been faithful, but she simply had not wanted to know. Her marriage was over and that was the end of it. No questions asked. Only now, everything was coming back to haunt her in the worst possible way.

TBC


	4. December 14, 2005 Part 3

_December 14, 2005 - Part 3

* * *

_

_December 14, 2005_

_AV Laboratory, FBI Field Office_

_Los Angeles_

„The video material that you brought me shows the entrance gates from all five gates to the park. Each gate is monitored by two cameras, catching all everything that goes in an out. "The A-V tech explained as she brought up the video feed on the screen. „Now I focussed on the last 36 to 72 hours."

A steady stream of strollers flitted through the park gate as the video played back on fast forward.

„Aside from all the usual park visitors which I haven't looked into yet, I counted three six vehicles. Three during opening hours, the three others while the park was closed to visitors. "

„Bring up the ones during the off-hours. " David said.

„I thought you might say that. Here they are." The tech pulled up still's from three vehicles. „these are the vehicles that entered the park during off-hours."

„All these are the park's own cars. There were no other cars entering the park? Maybe we are wrong about the time frame? ", David thought out loud.

„Maybe not. This one", The tech brought up one of the stills; „this truck entered the park from the east entrance at 2.34 p.m. on December 13. A bit early for maintenance. "

„Can you play back the sequence? "

„Sure. But there isn't much there. The driver had a key to the gate. "

On the screen, a murky scene played out. A beige pick-up truck drove up to the locked gate. For a moment nothing happened, and then a figure leaned out of the driver's side window, reached for the keypad.

„There! Can you freeze that? " David asked as the man was visible in profile for a few seconds as he entered the pass code and unlocked the gate.

„Sure. I'll magnify this portion of the picture", The tech selected the square around the man's head and magnified it. The picture was dark and the stranger was wearing a baseball cap pulled far into his face, but parts of his profile were clearly visible.

„Damn, that's not very clear. " David said as he looked at the outline. „He knew he was being filmed. The cap covers all of his eyes. And it looks like he has a beard? "

„Seems so. Could be fake though. I don't know whether there is enough, but I can try to run an extrapolation to get a picture of your suspect. I can't promise you that I'll get anything, but it's worth a try. "

„Good. Thanks. Now can you zoom in a bit more on the logo on his cap? "

„Here you go. 'TR-45'. Mean anything to you? "

„No, no idea. But we might be able to find out", David jotted down the words on his notepad.

oOo

_December14, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

„Agent Eppes? Here is the report from the trace lab", Agent Carter handed Don the report he had been waiting for. He had been going through missing persons reports, going by age and appearance of the victim, trying to uncover the identity of the murdered man but his thoughts had been wandering. He had tried calling Terry on her cell phone twice earlier but she hadn't picked up or replied to the message he had left on her mailbox. He was just about to pick up his phone and call her home number when he saw her at the far end of the office. Terry came hurrying towards his desk, seeming stressed and tense.

„I got your message. I forgot my phone this morning. I'm sorry, it won't happen again", She blurted in a rush.

„Okay, sit down. We haven't gotten too far yet. We were at the scene and I just got the report from trace. David is checking out the surveillance tapes. If we are lucky we caught the killer on them. "Don said, gesturing to the chair next to his.

„Do we know who the victim was? "

„Not, yet, I'm working on it. But we need more people on this. There was some weird stuff at the scene. Some sort of symbol. Looks like a 'Z' with a line through it. "Don passed Terry the photograph from the crime scene.

„Zorro? I have no idea. I haven't seen this in connection with any cultist group, but I'm not an expert on fringe groups. "Terry thought out loud.

„It's more than I have. But that's not all. We also found some sort of ball next to the body. What do you make of it? "

Don handed her the spherical object. Terry turned it around. It vaguely reminded her of a golf ball. It wasn't quite a perfect sphere but was indented; each indentation had a number, from one to one hundred. It looked like there were two spheres in each other, the outer one clear plastic, and the inner bright yellow. She experimentally rolled the object on Don's table. It took a few seconds to come to a standstill on one position. The indentation inscribed with '38' was on top. Don and Terry realised it at the same time.

„It's a die. A hundred sided die. "

Terry pulled a strand of hair behind her ear.

„A die is random. Casting a die is playing god. Our killer is showing is that he is in control. I don't know. There is probably more. "Terry said distractedly.

Don gave her a questioning look, but said nothing.

„We need to get more people in on this. I'm going to ask DeWinter to let me assemble a taskforce. This too big ", Don got up.

A big case, LAPG hasn't even begun to scratch the surface yet and they have been sitting on the one for days already. They have barely Id-ed the first victim, but there are no suspects, not crime reconstruction, no one has bothered to retrace the vics last steps, we have virtually nothing. And I don't think this is going to stop just like that. This guy is telling us something. The symbol that has been carved into the tress at all he murder scenes, the round hundred-sided die that we have found with each victim. That's a message for us. "Don determinately smacked down his cup of coffee threatening to overspill the contents.

„I think getting more people in on this is a good idea, „ Terry said, although not for the reasons Don might have imagined. Her mind was occupied with thoughts of Peter. His sudden crash into her life this morning, ending with her flight out of the restaurant was far from over. Rationally she knew that before she could do anything, she had to get tested. The FBI had done testing on all applying agents and their were still random drug screens performed within the Bureau, but nobody would know if she had gotten infected during the time she was married to Peter. There was the option to turn to the psychological support services of the FBI; they would surely be able to provide her with resources for HIV testing. But if she went through the Bureau, it would be on file, on surveillance camera, it would be somewhere, even if the psychological service offered the possibility of anonymous consultation. But the patient-doctor confidentiality would be breached without a second thought, if the FBI even considered the possibility that she might be a liability to her team, endangering the agents she worked with, as well as the civilians she was sworn to protect.

Terry was trying to go it was anonymously as possible. A look in the yellow pages, revealed no shortage of AIDS and HIV resources geared at various segments of the population. Looking for a place to the tested fast and as anonymously as possible, she had jotted down the address and number for the nearest AIDS Healthcare Foundation Centre on a small piece of paper, folded it at least ten times, before dropping it into her purse. Open until 7 p.m. If she got lucky she could make that. The test, apparently one of those new quick ones, because Terry had always thought you needed to wait a week for your result, took only about twenty minutes. Twelve hours from now, she would now what her future would look like.

oOo

_December14, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

It was past midday, DeWinter was on his way back from Quantico now. Don had I.Ded the John Doe as Martin Bell from Antelope Valley. Married, 63 years old, electrician. No criminal record, no debt, no not much money either. Two children, Sarah Bell, deceased 1991 and Roy Bell, place of residence unknown. Don flipped the paper. Not much on the dead man. It read tragic, one kid dead, the other one gone without leaving an address. It didn't seem like Martin Bell had much of a family life going on with his kids. He had called for the widow to come over to the office. It was her who had reported Martin Bell missing four days before he was found murdered in Maguire Gardens. Now they were starting to close in on a time frame. The doc had said the body had been dead for 36 - 72 hours when they had found him in the park early this morning. Sabello had promised him, that he narrow that down with some fluid analysis, but even if he couldn't, then they knew one more thing already. The killer didn't go straight for the kill. There had to be some kind of foreplay, not sexual necessarily, which included the victims alive and under the power of the killer. The killer needed space and time to execute this detail of his fantasy. He had to have a place, where he was sure that he was not going to be disturbed. Maybe he brought his victims into a basement, or a shed outside, any derelict building would do.

They needed Charlie to make one of his maps, to cut down the worst of their legwork. But first, he knew, Charlie was going to need data. Everything they could get, where they victim's daily routine took them, where they were taken, where they were found, forensic evidence pointing to locations that the killer might frequent. He checked his watch. Mrs Bell should be here by now, and after that he was going to swing by Charlie's office, ask his help and show him the curious die.

Finally, fifteen minutes late, wrapped in a large, bit thin white vest, eyes hidden behind tinted glasses, Elena Bell sat face to face to Don Eppes and the Dictaphone in the middle of the desk recorded their conversation.

„I know it must be difficult Mrs Bell, but can you go back to the morning you last saw your husband and tell me everything that happened, even little details; you think that I might not be interested in. Can you do that? "

A short sniff came from Mrs Bell.

„I got up first and made breakfast, like always. Martin likes those Cornflakes, but not the sugared one, just the normal ones. I always pour him a glass of orange juice, for the Vitamin, you know. But he didn't drink his juice that morning. He said he was in a hurry. And he knocks over my tea with the newspaper and didn't even help me clean up the mess. I got angry at him…But I shouldn't have, because then he wouldn't be…" Elena Bell started crying again. Don carefully touched her arm. „You did everything all right. It was him, who was in a hurry. Did he say why he was late? "

„No, no. Just said he had to get on the road early. "Elena was dabbing her eyes under the sunglasses.

„Did your husband always take the same route to work and back? Did he stop to buy anything? "

„I think he took the same route everyday, why would he change that? He sometimes stops for the morning paper, the LATimes, not what we're reading out here. He reads it during lunch at work and after dinner at home. Buys one almost every day. "

„Do you happen to know where he buys his newspaper? "

Elena shrugged. „But Martin collects all receipts, he always puts it in his wallet after he buys something…unless you mean he didn't buy something that day. " Elena frowned and paled, refusing to continue the thought.

„Relax, Mrs Bell. I'll have an Agent go home with you and find a receipt from that store. "

Elena nodded and pulled her vest closer, wrapping it like a shield around here.

„Has Martin done something wrong, is that why he was murdered? " Elena asked suddenly.

„We don't know yet for certain, but we believe that your husband was just chosen at random. He did nothing wrong. The person who broke the law is the man who killed him and we are doing everything to find him. "

„Before you leave, just one more questions. What can you tell us about your family, your marriage with Martin, how he was keeping up with the children? Don knew that the daughter had been dead for some time, but he was curious about the son.

„Martin and I were happy. We were a happy couple. Sure we had hard times, when Sarah died. Sarah has always been a strain on our family. Martin never tried to understand her, but he couldn't. He couldn't imagine what the world must be like for her. I tried, but in the end, nothing was nothing for our poor girl, we couldn't reach her." Elena chocked back tears.

Don noted curiously. The daughter had died almost 15 years ago, but the mother's grief about her loss was still fresh. She had never put her daughter Sarah to rest.

„How did Martin react to Sarah's death?"

„He was sad, he had felt sorry for her, but he hadn't loved her. Not like I had."

„I'm sorry Mrs Bell. What about your son Roy? How did he react to the death of your daughter?"

„Roy," Her back straightened. „wasn't living with us anymore when it happened. Once he left for college, all we did was come every Christmas for a few days, then leave again. He never came home in the summer. Never told us what he did. He hated Martin and me. He thought we were treating Sarah wrong by letting her stay at home. But even before Sarah, he hated Martin. Martin paid for four years of college. My husband was a decent father; he didn't deserve the treatment he got from Roy. By when the payments stopped Roy stayed away. Now, he sends once Christmas card every year. I have a whole collection. At least my boy got out of the City. Not like me and Martin."

„Agent Ortiz will have a look at your postcards when she accompanies you home, she'll also help you find the receipt for the newspapers your husband used to buy."

„That's all right. I really don't know where Martin's put it."

„Agent Eppes, I'm ready to pick up your witness. " Agent Ortiz smiled an empty smile as she helped Elena Bell up from her seat.

Ortiz picked up the instructions from Don to collect a receipt from the newspaper kiosk and stirred the old lady towards the exit.

oOo

_December14, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

Agent DeWinter had arrived from Quantico and was back in his office, but Don knew better than to bombard him immediately with his request. Besides, the more information he could supply upfront the better. He joined David and Terry who were having coffee over a collection of files.

Don pulled up a chair and looked in.

„Find anything interesting?"

„Not really. I'm going over the Feldman case, that's the first victim. LAPD transferred the files and they got here by courier just now, but it isn't much. ID confirmed by one Paul Chestfield. Vic never married no known children, one brother in Arkansas. No other living relatives. Lived in a house in Antelope Valley, operated a small bookstore. Brother inherits the house and store, but it's not much, the store is deep in the red numbers and according to this it's not prime interest real estate either."

„So, we don't need a motive in the family if it is our serial guy," Don said. „Or are you still not sure whether we have a serial?"

„There are some signs, but no, I'm not sure. Not today." Terry said angrily and buried her head in her hands.

Don ignored her, knowing she didn't want him to fuss where everyone could see them.

„We assume and it is serial, then family motives don't play a role. We need exactly this guy when missing and where? We need the data so we can bring on Charlie, seeing DeWinter approves it.

Terry unburied her head and pushed the file over to Don. „Last seen leaving 'Antelope Valley Men's Fitness Centre' on November 20th. He was found dead November 25th. He was missing as early as November 21st when he didn't open his shop in the morning."

Don calculated. Feldman had been missing 5 days between his disappearance and the time he had been found. When had he died?

„Is there an autopsy report, anything from forensics in there?" He leaved through the file.

„Try this. It's the complete nine yards. Everything what trace processed." David handed him a folder.

Don opened it and found scene photo's eerily reminding him of the crime scene he had visited this morning in Maguire Gardens. The same tress, the body, flat on the back, hands to the side, the yellow ball or die wedged into the left hand. The olive tarp that had been covering the body, delaying detection. But why the parks in the City? There was plenty of parks further outside, were a body when dumped well away from any trails could stay undetected from months, even years. Every one in a blue moon, they pulled a body out of one of the parks down there, and not all of them were campers who had gotten lost, some of them were campers who had gotten shot first then lost. By leaving the body in a relatively small park in the City, the killer made sure the body was found rather soon. Not before he could get a away, but far before it rotted away.

There were pictures of the same symbols. Don turned it upside down and to the side. 'Y' and 'N' and 'A'. He aligned the picture with the slash through it acting as a horizontal line and started to read and turn. 'A' turn 'N' turn 'N' turn 'A'. Anna? What did it mean? Was it even the right solution to the symbol?

„Terry?" He tapped her on the shoulder from behind.

„There is something you should look at?" He showed her the symbols and turned it, just like he had done before. „You saw what it says?"

„Yes, Anna."

„Who do you think she is for our killer? "

„An idol, I'd say. Definitely she is a central part of his obsession. He doesn't have to be obsessed with her, or she can be substitute for any real person from his past, but Anna is an integral part of his fantasies".

„He has killed only men before. Do you think, he will kill this Anna-person? "

„No, not at this state, not unless something very dramatic were to happen. His Anna-fantasies stand above his killings, at least for know. But he undoubtedly has already developed a plan for what he will do to this woman. And he has been planning for a very long time."

„How do you know that? " David asked.

„It just occurred to me when I saw the photograph of the symbol. It looks very different when you carve in wood and it's still fresh, this must be months old. Even longer maybe. He has been planning all this for a long time."

_TBC_


	5. December 15, 2005 Part 1

_December 15, 2005_

_Eppes Residence, Los Angeles_

Charlie stared and watched in fascination as the white fluid fell in a perfect arch. An arc predetermined by gravity, the density of the milk, the viscosity of the milk, the density of the medium, air in the case. Altered by factors such as the tiny movements of air his father created when he flipped the pages of the newspaper. The ultra-fine vibration that rose from the surface to the table into his arm, generated by his older brother walking up and down waiting for the coffee machine to finish.

"Charlie! Stop!" Charlie jerked out of his reverie and promptly spilled a sea of milk on the table. He caught the bottle just before he dropped it.

"What's going on?"

"Were you trying to drown the Cornflakes?" The bowl was about the overflow."

Charlie got up to get a rag to clean up the mess. „I guess I'm still a bit tired." He admitted.

"I know you're not much of a morning person, but I need to talk to you before I head to the office this morning, so switch on your brain."

Don teased and finally poured himself a cup of coffee. He silently offered to Charlie, even though he knew his brother didn't drink coffee.

Charlie took a spoon full of cereal and chewed. After the first few bites, he usually felt more human. Mornings were not his time of the day. He needed until eleven at least to get into gear. He didn't understand Don, who could be in the office at 8 a.m., well rested and even having hit the jogging path or the gym before coming to work. Charlie needed to start a day slow. Dr. Fleinhardt knew this and never called Charlie before lunch, unless Charlie showed up on his own.

"Charlie", Don started, looking at his brother from the side. „We have a case at the moment, and I'd like to bring you in on it. Officially, as a consultant, you'll be paid by the hour by the FBI. It will be approved from the top and you would be excused from any school commitments in the mean time. This takes priority."

„So I guess it's an important case. Don, I helped you out before and you never made it such big of a deal. I can arrange my teaching schedule around the consultation work; I don't need you to help me with that." Charlie said, coming off less friendly than he had intended. It was simply too early for all of this. Besides, if Don wanted his help, he should just say so. They had done it before, him consulting with the FBI. Don led his own team, he was in the position to make use of outside resources as a saw fit. At least that was the way Charlie understood it.

„But I haven't gotten it all approved it. It's a big case, and we're still at the beginning, but I think you could help us cut down the work a lot."

Charlie nodded, munching on his breakfast. He was still waiting for Don to say something. He knew his brother wouldn't tell him that he might be needed when he didn't have his superior's approval yet, unless there was something else.

"I'm going to at CalSci all morning. Larry and I are going to work on the EGV some more. A guest lecturer from Oxford University is in the engineering department this month and he has some interesting ideas."

"I'll call you as soon as I know something. But there is something else. We found these with two bodies."

Don carefully set the two round dice down on the table. They glinted almost golden in the sunlight. Charlie took one and looked at it.

"It's Zocchihedron. A hundred sided die. It has a hundred flat panels. But it's not a true hectragon. The shape was invented by a man called Zocchi. He patented the design and sold it as a die."

"Who uses it?"

"Not many people. You probably noticed that it takes a while to settle on a number. It's designed to rule percentages in games, role playing games in particular. It was designed to replace the ambiguities when ruling percentages with two ten sides dies. One going in steps of 10, the other going in steps of one. But Zocchihedra are pretty rare. They don't play well and settle too slowly."

„So who sells them?" Don asked. The new information was interesting, but he didn't see how it tied into what they had. Maybe Terry was right and the die was just there to send a message.

"In stores, not so much, I guess. But there might just be a gamers' store in LA that I don't know about. I role-played for such a short time only, I wouldn't know. Otherwise, there is nothing that's not on the internet those days."

"You played role playing games? Like dragons, heroes, magic, and all that?" Don couldn't believe it. The more time he spent with his brother, the more unusual things he learned about him. He should never have lost touch with Charlie in the first place. But after college, he had entered a different world, Away from home for the first time, for the first time people knew him without knowing his genius brother, the demands of the FBI academy. It had been easy to get lost in the new world. And every time he had come home, Charlie had been there, but somehow more removed from him than ever. Charlie had found his own world at CalSci, a world that was far, far away from Don's world. Even when their mother had been diagnosed with cancer and he had taken a position back in LA, Charlie had stayed in his own world. He might have lived at home, but his mind lived in another dimension entirely. Now, a year after their mother's death, they were approaching each other again and Charlie's consulting work had been good for them both. Still, when Don looked at Charlie he saw the son who saw his mother suffering and didn't blink an eye, but turned to work like a fanatic. Don knew Charlie didn't lack care. He too had loved their mother, but he couldn't understand why Charlie had chosen to express himself by turning to an impossible math problem. Charlie was extreme and not in ways people expected. Don didn't want Charlie exposed to something he couldn't handle in the field because he had no idea who do deal with Charlie and he wasn't sure whether Alan knew either. Their mother, she had known how Charlie's mind worked.

"For maybe a month, Julia Carson was very into all that. I thought, there was too much story involved, although the strategy component was not bad. But I couldn't memorize the convoluted stories that the characters had going between each other and on the quest." Charlie shook his head and took another spoon full of Cornflakes.

_December 15, 2005_

_Terry Lake's Apartment, Los Angeles_

Twice the anonymous caller had already called since Terry Lake had been awake. She had woken up shortly after 3 a.m. and had been unable to fall asleep again. Fear and worry kept her awake. She hadn't made it to the testing centre yesterday. After she had discovered the age of the symbol in the trees, they had driven out to both crime scenes again, along with and expert from trace and a biologist, to take samples and more detailed photographs. It had been after 10 when she finally got home. Peter had left a message, but she deleted it before listening to it. She wished she'd never met Peter. But running away was not going to solve this; she knew she had to get tested as soon as possible. Today, she thought. I'm not going to be again before I get tested. She made a fist and got up. Cold fear was coiled in her belly. Her future could all disappear. She wasn't prepared for that. Terry took a deep breath and tried to relax, She had thought about calling in sick, but she didn't want to lie. She was going to get through the day. The case was important. She just had to focus, she told herself, as she slipped on a light blue blouse. Focus and concentrate on the facts. Know the statistics. That's half of it. She put on a pair of pantyhose. Read the reports and then read them again, know every detail. Go through it in your mind. Find the emotions. Let me be strong. Terry settled on a steel grey skirt. See it as a puzzle. The emotions, the method, the statistics. Walk through it again. Look for typical traits in each killing. Find the fine differences. Look for the message from the killers eyes. And still be you at the end of the day. Terry slipped on a fitting steel grey jacket and snapped her hair together with a band behind her neck. She quickly checked her appearance in the mirror. The lack of sleep and the stress was starting to show, but she had looked worse. Everyone in the office had looked worse. She holstered her gun and grabbed her purse. In the corridor, she put on low heel dark grey shoes and left her apartment.

An older model black Mercedes followed her with a half a block distance.

_December 15, 2005_

_Briefing Room, FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

The group a agents was assembled around the table, the white board on the far end of the room, displaying photographs of the victims and the current status of the investigation. With the conclusion that this was an active serial case, a task force would be working on the case.

Don stepped up the white board.

„All right, here is what we have on this case. Two victims, George Feldman, Caucasian male, 63 years old and Robert Bell, Caucasian male, 61 years old. Feldman was found dead on November 25th in Lorenyo Park. Cause of death was ultimately a broken neck, but his throat was cut as well. Bell was found on December 14th in the Maguire Gardens, also with a broken neck and a slit throat. Medical examiner said our killer is probably right handed and has either advanced knowledge of martial arts or experience in hand to hand combat."

„So we are looking at military personnel?" David asked.

„Yes, military, veterans, police, law enforcement in general. There are all kind of places where our killer could have gotten his training." Don summarised

„According to LAPD, Feldman was last seen three days before he was found murdered by a Paul Burton. The detectives already talked to him, but I want to talk to him again. Carter, you can do that. We still know to little about Feldman's habits. If anyone has seen him after Paul Burton, I want to know about it. All we know for now is that he never made it to work the next morning. We don't know whether he came home that night. His car is missing. Curtis, Mulligan and David, you work on Feldman. I want his last hours reconstructed, I want to know where he went, who he met, everything. The complete timeline." Don ordered. „The same goes for Martin Bell, we know he probably met his killer on his way to work, but we don't know where. Keith and Varitek, you are on him. We are going to go public tonight on the news. Hopefully, someone saw something and will come forward."

"Both victims worked out on a regular basis and were fit for their age, the killer must be strong and in good shape to break their necks with his bare hands." Terry said. That means, we can rule out women. I think we are looking for an experienced killer. He is very sure of his MO. Normally, a killer would hunt for his victims at night. We know that at least Martin Bell was kidnapped during the day. Our guy knows what he is doing. Also the killings. They are efficient, not messy. This is not a first time killer. Experience suggests, it's a white male, in his thirties to forties, who has problems with authorities, due to his uncontrollable aggression. Aggressions against men are rare, especially against older men. He is organized, from the way he displays the bodies, we can see that he is in control of himself. He is not afraid of getting caught. Classic signs of deviant behaviour were probably evident when he was still a child. Cruelty to animals, setting fires, tormenting other children and pathological lying. It's likely that he is in the system because of a minor offence, but there are always some that stay off the radar."

_December 15, 2005_

_Office of Agent Winter, Los Angeles FBI Field Office_

The door to Agent DeWinter's office was ajar and Don knocked on the frame to alert DeWinter to his presence.

"Agent Eppes! I was about to call for you. Please come in." DeWinter looked up.

Don entered and looked towards the seat. DeWinter nodded for him to sit down.

"Agent DeWinter, about the Park murders, I feel this case is bigger than we have initially anticipated."

"There was another matter that I wanted to discuss with you, Agent Eppes. Agent Ortiz didn't show up for work this morning and I could not reach her and her cell phone or under her home number."

"I sent her to accompany a witness back to her home and to collect evidence late yesterday afternoon. I was back at the crime scenes later on, I don't know whether she reported in with the evidence of not." Don explained, starting to feel uncomfortable.

"She didn't report in. I had the logs checked. Her key card wasn't used again since she left yesterday at 5.21 p.m. Your priority is to locate Agent Ortiz."

"Yes, sir." Don didn't need the lecture to see that this was serious. The possibility that their case could have led to the kidnapping of a federal officer alone upgraded it to a top priority for the field office. Every resource available would be expended into finding the missing agent.

"The case has top priority. You get your extra man power. Everyone I can spare. I want to see results, fast results. How are you coming on the killer?"

"No eye witnesses yet, but we have feed from a surveillance video. It's not good, but A-V extrapolated something decent from it. We also have height and weight approximation from the surveillance video. We have partial description of clothes and a baseball cap, Agent Sinclair is trying to find out where the baseball cap is from. If we know the store, or event were it was handed out, maybe we can narrow it down some."

„We go public with it. Radio, newspaper, local TV."

„I'll speak with the press department." Don nodded.

"Get Agent Lake to concentrate on this guy. I know she is a field agent, but let her sit a few out on this one, we need the profile here." Don nodded, but knew Terry wasn't going to be happy with that. Terry was a field agent, not a profiler and she loved it. She wasn't one of the people at Quantico who spent their days going through witness statements and scene photographs. Terry was out there.

"LAPD has been at Agent Ortiz house. She isn't there and nothing looks out of the ordinary. It's your turn now. Keep me informed at all times."

"I will." Don nodded and left.

Only when he walked down the corridor he started to question why the machinery was working so quickly. Adult missing person cases took much longer and just because an agent was late to work and didn't answer his phone, no one called LAPD. Terry had been late yesterday and he hadn't reported her missing. She had showed up on her own.

He ran into Terry on the way to his car.

"Already leaving again?" She teased.

"No, Ortiz has gone missing. I'm checking out the Bell's place. Come along? I wanted to take David, but couldn't find him."

"Sure." Terry got in the car next to Don. She was still nervous and wiry from lack of sleep, but now she had at least something to occupy her mind with. "When did it happen?"

"Rita going missing? I don't know. Apparently she isn't home, isn't answering phones, someone must have reported her missing. I'm a bit surprised myself that DeWinter is already calling it a case, even had LAPD checking out her apartment."

"Well, a father's worried." Terry grinned.

"What!" Don's car nearly hit a car parked on the curb. "She's his daughter? Then he must be older than he looks, much older."

"Or he was young and inexperienced." Terry chuckled. "But seriously, Rita DeWinter, married to Ramon Ortiz is Carl DeWinter's daughter. You should have gone to last year's Christmas party. That's where I learned all this fascinating information."

"Too bad I missed it." Don said in mock sincerity.

"You think something happened?" Terry asked.

"I don't know. I thought it was risk free, otherwise I'd never send a new agent into the situation. For me she was just driving a witness home and collecting some evidence."

TBC


	6. December 15, 2005 Part 2

_December 15, 2005_

_Bell Residence, Los Angeles_

"She drove me home yesterday. She said she neededs to take a look at the recipts that my husband uanted some tea, but she was in a hurry to leave again." Marlene Bell recalled. Don and Terry had driven out to the widow's home, the last known location of Rita Ortiz.

"Did she take the recipts with her?" Don asked.

"Yes, she said you needed them, for the case." Mrs Bell replied.

"You said, Agent Ortiz was in a hurry, did she say anything about where she was going?"

"No, no she didn't say anything. But she left all of a sudden after ahe got that call. She was in the kitchen with me, asking me questions about the newspapers Martin was reading and then she got a phone call. After she got off the phone she left."

"Any idea who was on the phone with her?"

"No, she went outside right after her phone rang, but I heard her yelling through the door. The only thing I heard was 'I'll see you there'. I hope that helps you. She is not in any throuble, is she?"

"No, not as far as we know." Terry reassured her. "You have helped us a lot. Please don't hesitate to call us if you recall anything else that might help." She handed Mrs Bell her card.

Don and Terry bid the woman good-bye and made the way back to their government issued car.

"So what is your take on this?" Don asked as he settled into the drivers' seat.

"I can't say much, but my feeling is that this has nothing to do with our case. It all looks like some personal issue and there is hardly a case as it is. Rita hasn't even been missing twenty-four hours. It's a bit early to tell anything. This could be anything."

"Exactly, it could be criminal. In that case we have to get involved now. It might be our only chance if something really did happen." Don thought back to the morning Terry had been late. What if she had met someone on her jogging route this morning and that someone had had a gun or a knife? Terry's absence at the office had hardly been noticed even though she had been over two hours late. It would have been too late. It could already be to late for Rita Ortiz if she had really met up with someone meaning her harm the previous night.

"I'll run a list of her callers from last night, then we'll know more." Terry suggested, interrupting Don's reverie.

"All right. I talked to Charlie this morning. He said that the golden balls we found are actually dies. Roleplayers use them. They are apparently not sold in many places, I'll canvas the gaming stores in the city this afternoon and see if anything turns up. If we are lucky we'll get a first list of possible suspects to work with."

"The killer still could have bought the dice on-line. And considering what I have seen of his work, the purchase of the dice could have been years ago. His fantasy is very detailed, something like that doesn't happen overnight. It takes decades to evolve into such detail. I have been over the scene photos again. There is something almost ritualistic in the execution of these killings."

"You think we are dealing with a fringe group or with cultism?"

"The use of a symbol indicates identification with a organisation of some sort. It is a marking. I have a meeting with a professor at UCLos Angeles at 11.30 this morning. Dr. Hardwig. He's a professor of socio-religious dyniamics. He specialices in cult groups. I'm hoping that he can tell me more about the symbol that we found on the tree."

_December 15, 2005_

_TIER-45, Los Angeles_

The small shop was squeeyed in between in bookshop and a Chinese supermarket. David almost missed the stained glass door as he walked down the sidewalk. The store's name 'Tier-45' stood on the door in faded red lettering. David pushed the door open and entered the store.

The dim inside was a stark constrast to the bright street in midday Los Angeles. The small store was crammed with shelves reaching up to the ceiling, piling up the items on sale, rather than displaying them.

"Can I help you?" A man in his forties appearned from the maye of shelves. He wore a black shirt with the lettering TR-45 emblayoned in bold red on the front.

"In fact you can. I'm Agent Sinclair with the FBI." David showed his badge. "We are trying to identify a man who is probably a customer of this store. He was seen wearing this baseball cap." David showed the man the surveillance photograph from the park.

"Yes, that's one of ours. We had the caps for a promotional action a few years back. We never had them for sale. Had them in black and beige. The beige didn't go at all. I think we still have a carton of them sitting in the back room."

"Can you give me any more detail about the promotional action? When was that?"

The man pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Let me think. It's been a while. 1998. Boy, how time flies. We were trying to pull more people to our website, which was new at the time. Gave one out with every internet order. I take it you want to see our records from that year."

"That's right. The man we are looking for possibly purchased one or several of these." David showed the man one of the yellow Yocchihedra recovered from the crime scenes.

"All right. We keep all our records. I'll have the folder for you in a second." The man disappeared behind the shelves the reappear a short time later with a folder.

"Here. All the orders filled in 1998 that were payed for with cheque or credit card. The caps were our summer special from June through September, if memeory serves right." The man shrugged and handed David the folder.

"Thank you. You have been a big help."

"Good luck finding your guy,"

_December 15, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

Although he had been to Don's office quite often in the past few months, it was still like stepping in a whole different world for him. He was a stranger to that world and he knew that Don and his father wanted to keep it that way.

Spotting Don at his usual desk, Charly made his way over to his brother.

"Don!"

"Charly. I didn't realiye, you would be coming over this early. I thought you and professor Fleinhardt were busy with the…Whatever it is that you do."

"We finished for an early lunch and I thought I'd come over right away."

"Actually it is good that you are here already. Our case just good bigger this morning. One of our agents has disappeared and we are operating under the assumption that it is related to the case. She was last seen transporting evidence related to the case. My superiors have authorised a bigger taskforce first thing this morning. Still, we are going to be spread pretty thin on this one."

"No problem. I just need all the data you got. Crime scenes. Victim movments. Do you know where he killed them yet?"

"No. The agent that went missing was carrying evidence that would have possibly provided us with that information. We also know that the victims were held somewhere before they were killed. The killer must have a some location were he feels it is safe imprison his victims before he kills them."

"An appropriate location has to confirm to certain variables. It has to be accessible by car, since he needs to be able to transport his victims there, possibly while they are unconscious."

"The toxicological report is still pending. So far the autopsy report showed no signs that they had any significant injuries prior to being killed."

"Aside from being accessible, the location also has to be secluded enough not to attract undue attention from neighbours. A house in a suburban neighbourhood would be an unlikely possibility. Once I have defined a more clear yone in which our killer most likely lives, those variable can help me identify probable hide outs." Charlie explained.

"The killer doesn't have to live in out his hide-out." Don considered.

"That's true. Still, it will probably be within his safe zone. At this point, my concenrn is that there isn't enough data to get a definintive result. Two muders aren't really enough to be considered a serial normally and geographical profiling was developed for serial crimes. But I'm fairly confident that I can adapt the math behind it to your case."

"Anything would help, really. We are looking for a needle in a haystack. I'm preparing for a briefing in twenty minutes, so you'll be up to speed on what we have on the case.

_December 15, 2005_

_Office of Dr. Lionel Hardwig, UCLA_

"As I told you over the phone already, Agent Lake, I do not recogniye this symbol. These killing that you have described have some features of ritualistic crimes in the occult community, such as the public display of the victim of the victim, the manner of death, in this case, letting them bleed to death, the use of symbolism." Dr. Harwood explained. Terry had come to see the scientist to enquire about the 'Y' symbol.

"So it is possible that we are looking at a cult group here?" Terry asked.

"Possible yes. But unlikely. You see, i'm not a criminologist or a criminal profiler, but I deal with the dymanics of religious fringe groups. Most fringe groups never resort to violence, Agent Lake. And when violence does occur then it leads more often to suicide than to homicide. Ritualistic sacrifice is very rare. It is more common that a fringe group resorts to violence to punish people who consider leaving or have left the group."

"Which is unlikly since both our victims are the same age and similar appearance." Terry concluded.

"Exactly. One thing that occurred to me, in the photo that you showed to me, the symbol looked like it had been carved into the tree at least two or three years ago."

"Yes, we noted that as well." Terry said.

"In many ritualistic acts, locations plays an important role and the same locations are used over and over again. There are several documented cases were ritual murders took place in the same spot several years apart."

_December 15, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

The printer hummed and sputtered and finally produced to closely printed pages of names compiled from the orders of the Tier-45 gaming shop.

"Anything stand out?" Don asked and looked up from his computer screen.

"Nothing yet. There are about a two hundred orders from local customers made with credit card or cheque during the period the store was giving out the baseball caps. About forty of those people ordered Yocchihedra. I printed out their names. I'm going to run them through the database and see if anything pops up. Do you have anything yet?"

Don leaned back in his chair.

"Too much actually. The pic that tech extrapolated is so vague that I'm getting hits left and right. He could be everyone and no one. Between 20 and 50, Caucasian, brown or grey hair, hell, half the office could be this guy." Don said. Another problem he was facing was that he could only run the extrapolated picture against the mug shot database which represented a very small segment of the population. Terry had said that the presonality disturbance of the killer had probably begun very early in life, but that didn't mean that he had already contact with the police.

"Too bad the DMV database doesn't provide us with up to date pictures. We'll have no choice but to look up everyone on the client list of Tier-45 and see the guy from the surveillance footage is one of them. If he is, we are lucky. But if he isn't we are back to square one." David said.

_December 15, 2005_

_Maguire Gardens, Los Angeles_

The crime scene tape was still in place from the previous day and to Don it seemed to be almost a replay of the same events as he made his way towards to clearing in the trees. He had already been about to finish up for the day with the search through the mug shot database still running and the APB on Rita Ortiz's car out, there had not been much more that he could do. Charlie's analysis would take some more time as well. The call that the time rechecking the crime scenes had found something, had been unexpected, but not surprising.

When he entered the clearing, the exhumation was already fully in progress. One of the agents spotted him and went over to inform him.

"Agent Eppes! We found the body about an hour ago. It was buried about 4 feet beneath the ground, wrapped in the same material that covered the body that we found this morning. The coroner isn't here yet, but this guy seems to have been dead for a while. Nothing but bones and some fabric left. Dr. Sabello should be here any moment." The young agent explained.

"Good job. Have you found anything else?"

"Yes, we found another one of those weird dice." The agent handed Don the evidence bag that held the yellow Zocchihedron. Don glanced at it. David had looked through the orders from Tier-45. They had sold hundreds of those dice in 1998. If the killer was indeed among the customers, they would have no choice but to check out each one of them. It would help if Charlie could cut down their legwork by giving them a geographical zone to work in. "I almost thought this was a joke. Until I saw you, Agent Eppes." Dr. Sabello's voice came from behind. "Twice to the same scene in two days, that's rare in my line of work. What do we have here?"

"Over here." Don led the medical examiner over to the shallow grave in the middle of the clearing.

"Our profiler suggested we do a little digging and it turns out she was right. Four feet under the ground, we found bones."

"I see." Dr. Sarbello carefully stepped closer to the pitt.

"As always, you will have to wait for my full report, but I can tell you that the body has been dead for at least five years, judging by the state of decomposition." Dr. Sabello pointed at the bones.

"Well, there isn't much left but bones." Don commented and shook his head.

"Exactly. It takes at least five years for the flesh to decay this far. There is no residual fabric, here. So the body was naked or burried for at least a decade. Jeans last over ten years. The body was buried barefoot or in stocking feet, otherwise you would see significant remains of the shoes. Ten years are nothing to shoes. You might know it from historic finds, Agens, but leather can last for centuries under good conditions."

"So, the body was dumped here." Don had his notepad put and writing along.

"I didn't say that." Dr. Sabello corrected.

"I thought you said, the body was dumped without shoes or clothes."

"Marching someone into the woods without shoes is sending a pretty clear signal. After such a long time, it is pretty difficult to determine whether a person was killed where they were found. It is however possible to determine whether the body decayed in that location. But the analysis of the soil samples will take two to three days."

"Is there anything else that you can tell me right now?" Don asked.

"Yes. I can tell you that this body is male and from what I can tell from looking at the skull, I would say that it's a Caucasian male. So far no visible bullet wounds or other signs of injury."

Don leaned over to examine the olive tarp that had covered the body. Aside from soil stains, there were other unidentifiable stains on the fabric.

"Hey Doc. Have a look at this." Don pointed to the tarp. "Can you still analyse what's on this?"

"Time did degrade this, but five years isn't too much. If there is blood on this, it might be enough for DNA."

TBC


	7. December 16, 2005 Part 1

_December 16, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

Don swiped his access card through the magnetic reader and pushed open the glass door leading to the offices. He made his way to his desk. To his surprise, Charlie was already sitting at his desk, lost in a computer print-out.

"Charlie! What are you doing here?"

"I'm working on something. Terry said something yesterday that got me thinking. You know that I said that I didn't have enough data to compile an accurate geographic profile. Terry's profile described your killer as a profoundly disturbed personality and looking through the crime scene photos, I figured, this might not be his first murder. So I went through past cases in the city that were similar. To gather additional data. I found two more cases that were a close match considering nine variables, they matched seven variables and three cases that matched six or five variables."

"Impressive. Well, I got a case that is definitely the work of the same killer. We found a second body buried under the one we found at Maguire Garden last night. It has been under there for a while. Nothing left but bones. I put a rush on the analysis, but it will be a bit before we have anything." Don said, pulling out a second chair and sat next to Charlie. "Now, tell me about the cases you think are related."

"I didn't say that they are related, they have certain similar characteristics. I used nine variables to classify homicides. Gender; age, social standing, location, cause of death, circumstances of death, time of death, time between death and discovery, time between last sign of life and death. The last two variables can't always be determined accurately, I only included cases with fairly accurate data." Charlie explained.

"How far did you go back?"

"Terry estimated his age thirty to forty. I went back twenty years from now. I printed out the fact sheets for the five cases. I haven't included them in my profile yet. I need a soda before that. I was actually about to go home before you came in, but I guess it was later than I thought."

"Well, I did come in early. This is a hot case, but you are way past your bedtime." Don teased. "Now about those cases..."

"Here" Charlie showed Don the printout. "Roger Danton. 65 years old. Middleclass, married. Died 1988. Found in abandonbned lot Reno. Neck broken, throat slashed. Last seen three days before he was killed, found the morning after his murder. He was dumped in sight of the street."

"Reno? You sure?"

"There was a chalk drawing. It had rained in the early morning, so there wasn't much left. This was what they photographed." Charlie showed him the print-out.

"Not much to see. But it could be a circle. But doesn't geographical profiling rely on a killer always operating in the same area?"

"Yes, it does. But where a killer operates depends on his circumstances. A salesman might kill in different towns, it might be part of his MO, what he does to stay undetected. There are even killers who killed on more than one conrtinent. Besides, there is another potential victim in Reno. In 1992. Simon Johnson, 55. Married. Neckbroken, throat slashed. He was dumped in a schoolyard. Disappeared three days before he was murdered, found the morning after he was killed. The same as four years earlier."

"A sign or a die with either of the Reno victims?"

"Only the washed away chalk picture, nothing with the second victim."

"You realize that this could be the trail of a completly different killer."

"I don't think so. To many variables match. The characteristics of victims, locations and MO are all the same."

"Then why didn't he leave his signature behind?"

"I don't know, his pathology might have evoloved. This is more Terry's field of expertise." Charlie shrugged. To him it made all sense.

"What about the other three cases? Where the bodies found in the city?"

"Yes. They were all later than 1992. Which leads me to assume that the killer might have moved to LA after 1992." Charlie expained.

"Give me the Cliff's version. Does anything stand out?"

"I found perhaps the oldest victim of all. In 2003, Vaughn Tanner was found in a shallow grave on a building site. The building had been vacant since '78. In 1968, 19 year old Vaughn Tanner disappeared from his dorm at UCLA. Bone examnination suggest that he was killed around the age he disappeared."

"What connects him to the other murders?"

"What he had carved into his chest. Of course the skin was long gone. But the cuts went down into the bone and LAPD had the labs in Quantico reconstruct the image. Look." Charlie handed Don the printout.

Don stared at the same symbol that at been carved in the wood at the crime scenes. Carved in wood, carved in flesh?

"I agree, this is pretty unique. But until we know how much was released to the press, we won't know enough for sure. I'll ask David to call the LADP press department when he comes in. Terry should also take a look at these cases, I want to know what she thinks. And I want you to go home. Get some sleep, you have been up all night." Don piled up Charlie's print-outs.

"Don, "Charlie protested. "I have pulled plenty of all-nighters. I'm fine. I just need to get some coffee. You said it yourself, this case is hot. Besides, you have enough to do, you can work through the details of these old files. One of your agents is missing."

"How do you know?" As far as Don know, this matter was need-to-know only.

"One of the agent talked about the missing agent. Just because this is the FBI, it doesn't mean that people don't gossip." Charlie smiled.

_December 16, 2005_

_Office of Agent DeWinter_

Don knocked on the doorframe of the opened door.

"Come on, Don."

"Good morning, Agent DeWinter. Do you have a moment? I have some questions regarding the investigation."

"Always." DeWinter waved him in and gestured him to the chair in front of the table.

"So what is it that you need? You know that the entire power of this office is behind you in locating Agent Ortiz."

"I appreciate that. We have talked to the witness who has last seen Agent Ortiz. She told as that the Agent recieved a phone call that promted her to leave. We checked her cell phone logs for the time in question and found a call coming from a property in Mexico owned by your family."

"Thank you for handling this discretly. Neither me nor my wife were in Mexico recently. The only ones who have access to the property are my wife's sister Abby and her husband Thomas. They have been using the house for twenty years, we trust them implicitly. They would never..."

"Where are you keeping the key to your house in Mexico. Maybe someone could have duplicated it?"

"We keep it at our house, at the keyboard." DeWinter frowned. "My brother...Adrian. He has been staying with us for a while a few months ago. But he is terminally ill. Cancer. He's had a lot of bad luck, but he could never harm anyone."

"We still need to talk to him. Do you have his address?"

"St. Francis Hospice, please, he is dying."

_December 16, 2005_

_St. Francis Hospice_

The entrance hall was friendly and open. Big windows and light woods. The woman behind the reception wore white and smiled.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, ma'am. We are with the FBI and have a few questions for a patient of yours." David and Don showed their badges.

"We don't have partients, we have residents." She corrected Don with a smile. "What do you want to know?"

"We need to speak to Adrian DeWinter."

"We have no resident with that name." She still smiled.

"Could you please check your files, you sure have a lot of residents."

"I know every resident personally. Our house provides a familiar athmosphere. Nobody should spend their last days alone. We give people a family. I would know the man you are looking for if he were here."

"Has anyone named DeWinter every called here, maybe to look at the facility?"

The woman flipped through the pages of an appointment book.

"Yes. A Mr. DeWinter was her. About a month ago. Now I remember. A young woman was with him. Presumably his daughter."

_December 16, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

"Charlie?" Charlie heard the female voice from behind and turned around. Terry was standing behind him.

"I heard you dug up potential victims."

"Yes, Don said I should have you take a look at them to see how they fit the profile. I matched them to the new murders based on a selection of variables, but i can't tell which variables are more important than others. That's where the profiler, you, comes in."

"Well, you know, killers are not dead set on an MO, not regarding an variable as you call it. Of course, elements of their killings are parts of their pathology. Their choice of victim is almost alsways pathogical. You can excluded cases where the victims have different races, genders, or large age differences. Of course there are exceptions. For some something less obvious is the trigger."

"The victims I found, are all male, all white. And all except one 55 or older."

"How a killers kills his victims, how he subdues them and the degree of violence can where with experience. A killer might find out what works and what doesn't work. But generally, they stay with one type of method. It for example possible that a killer initially strangles his victims and later drugs them and then strangles them. But it is unlikely that he goes from strangling to poisoning. But the degree of violence is entirely viarable and widley space killing and escalaty to several killing in a few hours."

"I can match methods on all the cases. What I can't exactly match are locations. Some victims were burried, others deposited in the open."

"A killer might switch his dumping location if the pressure on him increases and he is afraid to be detected, or if he has known the victim personally, or he might switch locations if he is gettig bolder."

"It's unfortunatly not that simple. What I think is the first victim was burried in a cellar. Another victim was burried later, but Don doesn't have a date on that yet."

"The three victims we found in the last two days were killed by a signature killer. The signature can be almost anything. Taking something from the crime scene, leaving something, posing his victims, calling the police. A signature develops as the killers fantasies develop, but once a killer starts using it, he will always use it unless he is prevented, for example interrupted."

"This is where it gets complicated. The teenager that went missing in 1969 was murdered around the same time had the same symbol carved into his chest that our killer is now carving into trees."

"Carved. Years ago. Presumably when he burried John Doe in Maguire Gardens. We are having the other dump site dug up too. We are just waiting for the court order. Any chance that at the other four dump sites the symbol was just overlooked."

"On this site," Charlie handed her the print-out."Rain washed most of it away. At the schoolyard, nothing, but you can see the trees, it could have been there. without anyone seeing. Then we have one rest-stop, John Doe, never identified. There were walls, trees, no one was looking for any symbols. Since the man had no wallet and his car was missing, it was written up as robbery.

"Maybe it was robbery." Terry speculated.

"I doubt it. Robbers don't break a guy's neck and then slash his throat."

"The connection on this case is weak, I think. There was no proof he was kidnapped before he was murdered and his car was never found. And if he was married, why did his wife never report him missing?"

"He wore a wedding ring. Maybe he wasn't from the city. Maybe he wasn't here with his car. Please, just check out the police report for any graffiti. I can check out the trees at the rest stop myself." Charlie pleaded.

"Don would kill me if I let you go alone. I'll check for graffiti, but I doubt there are any pictures on record."

_December 16, 2005_

_Florenceway-Rest-Stop, Los Angeles_

Terry joined Charlie on the sidewalk. He studying crime scene photographs from the orignal case in 1995. He looked up and frowned.

"They must have remodelled this place. The store did not look like this when the pictures were taken. There was a footpath going off left to the restrooms." Charlie gestured into the air. There was no sign of a footpath, only parking cars.

"Yeah, the parking lot is bigger now and the restrooms are gone. Those tables are still there, with the trees." Terry indicated the far end of the parking lot. They headed towards the patch of grass.

"John Doe was found next to the trash can. Which is gone." Charlie mumbled.

"We can't do more than check out all the trees that are still there."

Terry and Charlie made their way onto the lawn and went from tree to tree. Terry approached one of the picnic tables when she saw it. The Z with the strike carved into the wood of the table. The mark was weathered. The wood was grey and damaged.

"Charlie! I found it."

Charlie came jogging over.

"That's about 60 feet from where the body was found. Isn't this a bit far away?"

Terry shrugged. "It is. But I don't believe this got here by coincidence. John Doe was killed by the same as the victims in the parks. We know this guy has killed five people. I'm afraid how many more we'll find." Terry said, looking darkly at the symbol carved into bank.

"According to my data, we have three more cases to check out. Two in Reno, one in LA."

"I'll talk to DeWinter about the new victims."


	8. December 16, 2005 Part 2

_December 16, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

Don was just about to get up and head to DeWinter's office when the office secretary dropped Dr. Sabello's report on his desk. Don grabbed the file and eagerly scanned the lines.

The skelleton they had dug up had been male, estimated age between 60 and 70 from the wear on the bones. Likely cause of death had been a broken neck, but Dr. Sabello didn't exclude anything. Soil test had revealed that the body had decayed where it had been found, but the crime scene investigators couldn't speculate as to where the primary crime scene might be. Based on the levels of heavy metals in the bones, Dr. Sabello estimated death between twenty-five and thirty years ago. The bones showed evidence of a healed skull break, healed broken ribs and badly decayed teeth. Dr. Sabello wrote that the healed skull fractures indicated a severe injury that meant that the victim had probably suffered from personality changes and cognitive problems.

'Decayed teeth, mental problem. He might have been homeless after the war.' Don thought. Identifying the man would be difficult. A homeless man twenty-five years ago. At least he could tell Charlie that he had been on the right trail all along. This killer had a long history. Don collected the print-outs that Charlie had made and sorted them into known victims and potential victims. Five known victims, two in 2005, 1995, 1975, 1968. A gap of twenty years. Where had he been? Sick? In another state? In the army? In prison? Three unknowns, in 1998,1992 and 1988. They would fill the gap. An escalating pattern.

Now they would have to authenticate they rest of the victims. Hopefully the rest of the data could provide Charlie with a clearer profile. He and David had a flight leaving for Reno in the afternoon. Hopefully visiting the old crime scenes would revel some new clues.

_December 16, 2005_

_Florenceway-Rest-Stop_

"Bye." Terry clicked off her cell-phone. She had just been on the phone with Don, updating him about the case.

"What's next? We need to check out the two crime scenes in Reno." Charlie said.

"First, I need to have a chat with our supervising Agent. This is not just Don and me on the case. An entire task force is working on the case. Given the evidence he'll probably send someone to Reno. But you need to get some sleep. Your time is too valuable for field work, we need you to work on the geographical profile. " Terry reminded him.

"As long as I get the data. The more data, the more acuarate the profile. I'll just fetch a coffee for the drive back." Charlie jogged off to the store.

Terry made her way back to the dark blue Sedan. She felt tired even though it was only midday. She had hardly been sleeping or eating those last few days. Being on a high-profile case didn't help. She rubbed her forehead. She could feel a headache brewing. It was going to be a long day. She could use a coffee as well. Terry locked the Sedan back up and she walked over to the store. She pushed upen the glass door and entered the store. Except for the woman behind the register the store seemed empty. Terry walked between the shelves, but she couldn't spot Charlie anywhere. Genuily concerned, she walked up to the woman behind the register.

"Hello. I'm Agent Lake with the FBI." She identified herself. The woman looked bored.

"Was a young man with dark, longish hair just in here?"

"Think so, but I didn't see him stealing anything."

"Where did he go?"

The woman shrugged.

"Was there anyone else here?"

"There was a guy a while before, but I think he was already gone. No, he was alone in the store."

"Is there only this one exit?" Terry pointed to the front door.

"Yeah, that's the only one." The woman confirmed.

"Then where does this door lead?" Terry pointed to a blue door in the back of the store.

"Can't you read, it's the way to the restrooms." The woman soundeunnerved.

Terry left the woman without comment. She opened the back door with her sleeve.

A fire-exit door was propped open with a piece of wood.

_December 16, 2005_

_Our Lady Mary, Catholic School for Girls_

_Reno, Nevada_

"I remember. It was an awful time for our comunity." The tiny nun said as she led Don and David out into the school yard. "I was the one who found him. I live in the building behind the school. I was on the way back from the chapel when I saw the body lying on the ground. At first I thought it was one of the poor homeless people, but then I saw that he was dead. I had never seen anyone who had been murdered. I called the police immediatly."

"We know all that, Sister Dolores." David said. "Do you remember any other incidents around this time? Anyone breaking into the school grounds, vandalism?"

"It's been over ten years..., but yes, it was the same year, I think, some drunk youths broke into your yard and sprayed something on the school walls. It was really harmless. This neighbouthood used to be difficult." Sister Dolores said.

"Can you remember what was sprayed on the walls?" Don asked. "It is really important if you could remember."

"Zorro."

"A 'Z'?"

"Yes, but like Zorro, it was crossed, I think."

"Thank you. And this was there when the body was found?" David asked.

Don's cell phone went off.

"Excuse me." He a stepped away and answered his phone.

"Don?" Terry asked over the phone.

"Terry, what's going on?"

"Don, it's Charlie. It looks like he has been kidnapped."

"What? What happened?"

"He was with me, we were checking out a scene. He went to buy a cup of coffee and disappeared." Terry explained in a rush.

"Are you sure he was kidnapped? Maybe you just lost each other?"

"Don, that's not what happened. We were at a rest stop. Were would Charlie go without a car? We'll sight the security tape foortage as soon as CSU is finished with the scene."

"Oh, God." Don paused. "I got to tell Dad."

"We can send someone if you want."

"No, he shouldn't hear this from an agent he doesn't even know."

"Don, he might hear it in the news first. I can go tell him."

"No. You are better on the case. The sooner we know what happened the better. I'll call my father, don't worry about it."

"Okay, if you think that's best."

"Thanks for letting me know immediatly."

"We'll do everything we can. You know that, Don."

Don pocketed his cell phone and headed back over the David who was still taking Sister Dolores statement.

"David, do you have a moment?"

"I was finished anyways. Thank you for your held, Sister."

"Good-bye. I hope you find the man you are looking for."

Sister Dolores went back towards the school building.

David turned to Don. "What's going on?"

"Charlie's going missing. It looks like he has been kidnapped. Look, I need to go back to LA."

"What happened?"

"Terry was there when it happened, but she said he just disappeared. I don't understand it. That's why I need to get back there. I need to let my Dad know."

"Sure. You can take the car, I'll rent one. I can finish on the other old case without you."

"Thanks, man."a

_December 16, 2005_

_AV lab, FBI Field Office Los Angeles_

Terry entered the lab in a rush. The technician had just called her that the security footage from the rest-store shop was ready.

"Agent Lake?" The technician looked up.

"Yes, that's me. You said you had something." Terry said impatiently.

"Yes and no. I have found the portion of the tape that you are looking for, but I'm afraid, that even if enhancement there won't be much to see."

"Let's see it anyways." Derry sat down on one of the chairs.

"Here we go."

On the tape, they saw Charlie enter the store and walk to the cooling shelves at the far end, where he stood browsing for a few moment. A few seconds after him, a figure with a baseball cap entered the store and joined Charlie. It looked like they were talking, then the stranger pulled out a gun and held it to Charlie's side. They swiftly moved out of camera range.

"Now, your kidnapper knew that he was being on camera,. He never shows his face to the camera. He is the cap pulled down and what lookes like a beard. Might be fake."

The description struck Terry. She had heard all this before. The man caught on tape the night before the body was found at Maguire gardens. Cap, beard, camera-shy.

"Can you zoom in on the cap?" Terry asked hoping that her suspicion wasn't about the be confirmed.

"Sure, I was about to tell you about that." The technician replyed and typed something. "This is a close-up of the print on his cap. TR-45. I have no idea what that means."

"Don't worry. I have run across that before. Any other details?" Terry was almost afraid to ask. This was a nightmare come true.

"I was also able to get a fairly good picture of his gun. It looks like a Smith & Wesson .45, but this is not 100."

"Good, we have a list of potential suspects, we can check for registered weapons."

"Well, there is no way to tell whether it's a reagistered gun. I might not be able to tell you how the kidnapper looks like, but I can tell you his height and approximate weight. Agent Vartitek gave me the stats of the victim and I extrapolated the height of the kidnapper, he is approximatly 6 ft tall, about 170lbs.

"Is there any chance of finding out what they are saying?" Terry asked.

"There is no audio on this tape." The tech replied.

"Don't we have lipreaders back in Quantico?" Terry asked.

"I know. I have worked with one of them on a few cases. But I don't think he could help here, the kidnapper kept his head turned too far and the bear is obscuring his lips. But he could get some of what the victim is saying. But it would probably just be an edjucated guess." The tech said.

Terry nodded. "Sending the tape to Quantico is going to take two weeks at least. We don't have that kind of time..."

"I understand. I know the guy personally. I'll email him the video file and ask him for his opinion. If you ever need to take it to court, I can always file an official request for analysis."

"Thank you. Call me when you have something. No matter what time it is."


	9. December 17, 2005 Part 1

_December 17, 2005_

_Eppes Residence, Los Angeles_

It was already dawning when Don pulled into the driveway in front of his brother's house. He had driven without so much as one rest-stop straight home. He had called Alan from Reno. He hated breaking the had news on the phone, but he was afraid that Alan would learn about Charlie's disappearance on the six o'clock news.

Don parked the car, shut off the motor and climbed out. He was dead on his feet, it had been a long day, but he couldn't even think about going to sleep right now. His mind was racing, as he involuntarily imagined what could be happening to Charlie right now.

Don unlocked the front door, surprised to find the lights still on.

"Dad?" he called.

"Don. You are late." Alan replied. Don followed the voice in the living room. To his surprise, he found Terry sitting with his father at the table.

"I came as soon as I could. Sorry." Don didn't know what else to say.

"I'm glad you are back." Terry said, but didn't smile. Somehow, Don was glad she was here. He could talk to her about what was being done to find Charlie, if he focussed on that, things didn't quite look so bleak.

Don went to get himself a beer from the fridge, then joined Alan and Terry at the table.

"Anything new since the last time we talked?"

"The lead with the gun didn't pan out. We ran the customer list from Tier-45 against registered owners of a Smith & Wesson .45, but there were no matches. No one with prior related to murder, kidnapping or extortion. A few felonies, more misdemeanours. Listen, we haven't exhausted all possibilities yet. You should sleep a few hours. We'll work on the list some more tomorrow morning."

"I don't think I can sleep now." Don rubbed his face. "It's already been fourteen hours and we have no real leads."

"Don, you should really get some sleep." Alan said.

"I can't Dad. What if there is a ransom demand?"

"I will stay here. You need to be fit tomorrow at the office." Alan sat, gently putting a hand on Don's arm.

"I'll probably be pulled off the case anyways. I'm too involved." Don shook his head. "They won't allow me to investigate. There is nothing I can do for Charlie."

"Yes, there is something you can do, Don. Get some rest. Your father needs you right now." Terry leaned towards him. "I'll let you know the minute something pops up."

"Thanks, I appreciate it. I know that you and David will do your best, it's just so difficult..." Don gave Terry a hug. Terry got up. "Have a good-night!"

_December 17, 2005_

_Eppes Residence, Los Angeles_

The ringing of his cell phone jerked Don awake. Almost panicked, he reached for the phone and answered.

"Agent Eppes."

"Don?" The familiar voice of his brother sounded over the phone.

"Charlie, where the hell are you?"

"I don't know. I can't see. He blindfolded me."

"Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

"I don't think so." Charlie replied.

"Where is he now?" Don asked.

"I don't know. I woke up and haven't heard anyone. The last thing I remember is a man shoving me into the back of a car."

"Did you see the plates?"

"No, but it was black and it was an SVU. Look I think the battery of my cell is running low."

"Quickly, tell me what you hear."

"It's quiet, very few cars. I think it's a cellar, the floor is concrete and it's cool, but no noise from an AC. Don-"

"Charlie, it's going to be all right,. We'll find you soon. We have the surveillance video from the store and we will find out where you called from."

"Don, I don't know what to do. I'm scared..."

_December 17, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

Don had called David and Terry on his way to the office. When he arrived, Terry was already there. She didn't look like she had slept at all. Terry was nursing he cup of coffee and waved to him when he came in.

"We have the cell phone companies information. But we cannot possible cover the entire radius that the cell tower covers." Terry handed him the print-out of the cell phone tower's range.

"You're right. But we know a few things that might help us narrow the list down. Charlie told me about a black SVU. The extrapolation from the surveillance footage gave as an height estimate of 6ft. DMV record include height and weight. We can set a height range from 5'9 and 6'1."

"Okay, I'll search the DMV database for matches in the cell towers range. You know that this is going to take a while. I brought doughnuts with me on the way in. Can I get you one? I bet you haven't eaten since yesterday morning."

"I can't say that I have felz hungry. But I guess I should eat something."

Terry pushed the box of doughnuts of to Don.

"I'll get you a cup of coffee."

When Terry returned with the coffee, Don sat at the table, head in his heads, obviously lost in thought. Terry placed the cup next to him, willing to let him rest for a moment.

"You know, he sounded so scared. He tried to hide it, but he was scared to death." Don turned to Terry.

"It's not your fault Don. If it is anyone's fault then it's mine, I let him out of my side and I misread the killer, thinking he would make no contact with us."

"You can't blame yourself."

"Neither can you."

Don checked the computer search results. "167 matches, 326 matches if you include back SVUs registered to women and men of all heights."

"Cross-check with TR-45 is customer list. We don't know for sure that he got the cap there himself, but it's our best lead." Terry suggested.

"All right." Don answered and typed. "Checking..."

"Seven matches. Five men, two women."

"You think we can exclude the women?" Don asked.

"Our killer has a significant problem with authority and suffers from rage and aggression, but he is not a sexual deviant. If he is an a relationship were he is calling the shots, he can function. He could be murdering without his girlfriend or wife knowing." Terry explained her profile. "But we might check for priors."

She entered the names into the FBI database.

"Paul Teager served a reduced sentence for mail fraud fifteen years ago and Adam Kessler smoked pot in 1968." Don read from the screen.

Terry shrugged. "Nothing telling. Both are non-violent crimes. But wasn't 1968 not the year the first victim went missing? So, our guy had to be, what? At least 15 to kill an adult

"So we can eliminate everyone born after 1953." Don said and entered the parameter. "We have him. The pot smoker. Adam Kessler, born 1950 in Los Angeles. And we have a current address on file."

_December 17, 2005_

_Outside the Residence of Adam Kessler, Los Angeles_

The black SVU was parked in the driveway. The curtains were pulled shut on all windows. No light was coming form inside. DeWinter and two tactical analysts sat in a van, disguised as a repairman's van, and and a tactical team had taken position around the house. Everything had happened swiftly and quietly.

Don and Terry had walked up to the front door and Don knocked on the door.

"Adam Kessler, open the door!"

"This is the FBI? If you don't open the door, we will."

"Open the door, we just want to ask you a few questions!"

No sound came from inside the house. Don tried the door, it was unlocked. He kicked it open, revealing a dark hallway.

"Mr. Kessler!"

Don and Terry stepped into the hallway. At the end a stairway led to the second floor. Terry pointed to the staircase. Don nodded and signalled for the agents outside to follow them quietly.

Her weapon ready, Terry made her way up the stairs. The house was in a dilapidated state. The wallpaper was old and was peeling in places. Black and wall drawings of empty landscapes decorated the walls. The upper hallway was dark and deserted. One door led to the left, the other one at the end of the hallway. Terry signalled Agent Varitek who had followed her upstairs to check out the room on their left while she proceeded to the end of the hallway. The door was ajar, Terry pushed it open and scanned the room. It was dark and empty. From across the hallway she hear Agent Varitek.

"Room secured. No one's here."

"Room secured over here too. Looks like nobody's home." Terry holstered her gun and started to look around. There was a kitchenette in the corner, sofa, TV, couch table. A shelf unit and a wardrobe covered the wall to her right. Terry went over to the kitchen, checking for knifes as the victims throats had been slashed. Indeed there were several knives in a drawer in the kitchen.

"Anything interesting?" Terry heard Agent Varitek behind her. She turned around and saw him by the door.

"A few knives. CSU will tell us if there is human blood on any if them. But there is a dishwasher here. If he is smart, he washed them, making DNA impossible. Did you find anything."

"Towels in the hamper, with stains on them. Looks like blood. Tranquilizers and heavy pain meds in the medicine cabinet."

Terry opened the fridge. Mustard and pickles. It looked like Adam Kessler didn't plan on coming back any time soon.

Suddenly, there was a thud and a scream.

"Agent Lake!" Varitek screamed. Terry whirled around and drew her gun. Before she could get a shot off, a heavy weight pushed her to the ground. Terry saw the knife in the man's right hand, while he held down her arm with the gun in hand. Terry felt the stab about her protective vest and couldn't help but scream. Pain and fear gave her strength and she managed to free her right arm. She managed to get off a first shot, missing her attacker. The man stabbed for her again, but he only caught her superficially on the hand, but it was enough, it make her release her gun, as the pain surprised her.

_TBC_


	10. December 17, 2005 Part 2

_December 17, 2005_

_Residence of Adam Kessler, Los Angeles_

Don proceeded through the hallway, followed by Agent Curtis. Don gestured for Agent Curtis to take the room to the side, while he proceeded to the room at the far end. The door was wide open, showing an empty room. There wasn't so much as wallpaper in the room. The walls and floor were stripped, no furniture, one window giving a view of the garden.

The garden was desolate. Plants were spare, no one was making an effort to water the garden. They would examine the ground for possible burials, but it was unlikely, the ground was going to be hard as rock.

"Agent Eppes! Room's secured. No one's home. There's nothing here." Curtis called from the other room.

"Same here. Looks like nobody even lived here." Don walked over to the other room. Indeed it looked just like the room he had just been in. Stripped floor and walls, no furniture.

"You think someone wanted to get rid of evidence?" Curtis speculated.

"If so, he did a thorough job. But he left his car." Don said and reholstered his gun.

"He wouldn't need it for a flight to Mexico. If you ask me, he is long gone." Curtis said.

"I hope not." Don said. He had put all his hopes on finding Charlie in this house. It had been their only lead. He hadn't allowed himself to believe that it wouldn't pan out."

Don leaned against the wall, the adrenaline rush wearing off. Now, he started to notice just how little he had slept.

"Did you hear that?" Curtis asked.

Don looked up, confused, he had been lost in thought.

Before he could answer, they heard a gunshot from the second floor.

Fatigue forgotten, Don and Agent Curtis raced upstairs. A horrible scene unfolded in front of them. Agent Varitek was on the floor, his face covered in blood. Terry was on the ground a few feet way, struggling with a man holding a knife. Terry's gun was lying on the floor a few inches from her right hand. Either her attacker hadn't noticed, or he wasn't interested in shooting her.

Curtis was aiming at the man, but Don suddenly realized that this man was the only connection to Charlie. If he was dead, he might never see his brother again.

"No." He gestured to Curtis to put the gun away.

"Drop the knife and put your hands in the air, Mr Kessler." Don ordered, hoping he could reason with the man. Curtis still kept his gun aimed at the Kessler.

Kessler didn't even look up to them, but he pulled Terry up and in front of him, shielding him from the agent's gun shots.

He smiled while he drew the knife across Terry's neck.

"Hänsel and Gretel are lost in the woods. Rumpelstizkin has stolen the queen's child. The princess the dropped a golden ball into the well." Kessler sing-songed.

"Drop the knife, now." Don ordered, knowing that Kessler could kill Terry any moment.

Curtis didn't wait for Kessler to react, but fired a shot immediately while Kessler was distracted. The bullet hit Kessler in the shoulder, the impact throwing him and Terry to the floor.

"Call the paramedics!" Don yelled to Curtis as he rushed over to Kessler and Terry.

Don reaches for Terry's wrist, feeling for a pulse, glad to find one. He pulled Terry from Kessler who hadn't made a move since he had been shot.

"Curtis, take care of Kessler!" Don threw a pair of handcuffs to Curtis.

Terry was on her back, blood on her skin, her clothes and the floor surrounding her. Don kneeled down next to her.

"Terry, listen, to me, you're going to be fine."

Don stripped out of his protective vest of shirt. He bundled up his shirt and pressed it to Terry's neck.

"Varitek?" Terry asked, obviously in pain.

"Alive. Don't worry. The paramedics are going to be here any moment." Don reasurred her.

"He...he came out...of nowhere. The room was secure." Terry almost pleaded

"It's all right. Don't talk. We'll figure it out." Don tried to calm her down It was not like Terry to be careless on an assignment, but until they figured out what had gone down, Terry and Varitek had acted by the book and had been surprised by a suspected hiding in a blind spot. Internal affairs would probably latch unto the incident if it turned out that Kessler had been able to overpower to armed FBI agents.

Don pressed his shirt against Terry's neck, stroking her hair with the other hand. He would never have done so, under other circumstances, they were past that phase in their relationship, but right now, it seemed to right thing to do. Terry seemed to relax with the familiar contact, but Don was concerned about the amount of blood she was losing. The cuts to her hand and arm didn't seem so bad, even though they were still bleeding. Kessler had caught her in the chest just above the vest and in the neck. he couldn't have hit a major blood vessel, otherwise, she would have already bleed out.

Don could here the sirens approach outside.

"Do you heard that, Terry, the paramedics are going to be here in a minute." He squeezed Terry's hand harder.

"I'm sorry...I screwed up."

"Calm. Try not to move. I'll take care of the case." Don had no idea how he would manage, but right now Terry needed someone who told her that things would turn out all right.

Don heard the steps of the paramedics downstairs.

"We have three injured up here." He yelled.

"We're coming up. Is the scene under control?"

"Yes, everything is under control." Curtis responded. He had meanwhile cuffed Kessler to the radiator. Kessler was bleeding from the gunshot wound to his shoulder, but he was not fatally injured.

The crew of four paramedics stepped into the room. One of them, a women came over to Don and Terry. She motioned for Don to give her access to Terry's wounds. While she temporary pressure bandages, she fired a row of questions at Don.

"Who long ago did this happen?"

"I don't know. Maybe fifteen minutes ago." Don's hand were starting to shake.

"Has she been able to talk?"

"Yes, why?"

"She suffered several penetrating injuries to the neck. There was the possibility of damage to the vocal chords. Now, has she been lucid?"

"Yes, she remembered what had happened."

"Good. Could she move her arms and legs?"

"You don't think she could be..."

"It's a possibility, she has wound on the side and back of her neck. Now, did you see her move her arms and legs?"

Don was confused and frightened. The whole period leading up to the arrival of the paramedics was a blur. He couldn't recall anything was certainty. The paramedic looked at him, expecting an answer.

"I don't know. I don't remember."

_December 17, 2005_

_Outside of the Residence of Adam Kessler_

The CSU team had pulled up about half an hour ago and was prepared to comb through the house inch by inch. From what Don had seen so far, there was no evidence that Adam Kessler was the serial killer that they were looking for. Technically he could go back to the office now and get started on his report. He had the feeling, this wasn't the last he was going to ponder the incident. Terry had said that Kessler had come out of nowhere. Varitek apparently hadn't seen him either. They also hadn't run the operation by DeWinter. Technically, it had been justified, they were pursuing a hot lead in a kidnapping case, a matter that could not be delayed. But DeWinter would definetly have had Don removed from the case.

Curtis walked up to Don. Don quickly slid his hands into his pockets, to hide them shaking.

"I know what you tried to do in there." Curtis said and lit himself a cigarette.

"I tried to get Kessler to surrender. I had no idea he was a complete lunatic." Don shrugged.

"Once, I might believe that. But trying it the second time was just stupid." Curtis blew out smoke.

Don wasn't in the mood to argue tactics. Part of him recognized his hesitation to use force for what it was, but he had been in charge and his interpretation of the situation set the tone of how it was going to be handled.

"I'm going to check out the rest of the property." Don sat, marching off. If Agent Curtis wanted to join him, he could, but Don was not eager for company.

As he had already seen from the window, the garden was mostly stones, cactus plants, dried bushes.

Don walked around the house to the backside. A strip of ground had been paved with grey tiles. Several large plant pots stood on the tiled floor. They were the only green things in the garden. Don didn't recognize the plant, but knew that it was neither coca plant, nor marijuana, so he let it be.

Curtis was sorting through stones and trash in the back of the garden. Don joined him.

"Find anything?"

"A pair of cuffs." Curtis pointed "And a lot of other trash. Old tools, old toys, old clothes. Nothing bloody so far."

"We can still compare the clothes to what the victims were wearing when they were last seen, it's unlikely, but maybe something will pop."

"Maybe." Curtis nodded. "The soil looks solid, undisturbed. But I asked CSU to come out here as soon as they can spare someone."

Don sat down on a stone. It took all his strength to hide how much he was shaking. But Curtis had a sharp eye. He sidled up to Don.

"Go home, Eppes. We'll call you when the results from CSU are you. Everyone knows that Kessler probably killed your brother. We'll make him talk." Curtin meant to reassure Don.

"My brother isn't dead." Don insisted. Curtis just nodded. "It's hard to get used to the idea. But Don, the entire office is behind you, will nail this guy. Now I go home. It's only 7a.m., get some rest."

"All right. I'll go home. But just for a few hours." Don conceded. He didn't think he'd be able to rest for one minute, but he was of no use here. Maybe Curtis was right, he was spent and he was too close to this case. The only reason he wasn't off the case yet, was because everything had happened so quickly after he had received the call from Charlie.


	11. December 17, 2005 Part 3

_December 17, 2005_

_Eppes Residence, Los Angeles_

Don's hands shuck so badly that it took him almost five minutes to get the key into the lock of his brother's house. Well, technically it was his brother's house, but Don still thought of it as the family home. What if he and Dad were now the only ones left of the family? Don refused to think about it, not now. He finally got the door open. The smell of coffee greeted it and for a moment it was almost like a moment at home with his family. But when his father came into the living room, a cup of coffee in his hand, but an expression of worry and fear on his face.

"Don? Where were you?"

"Work. They got a trace of Charlie's cell-phone."

"That's great, right. It means that he is still alive?" He asked with barely contained hope.

"Yes, I talked to him. He seemed unharmed." Don didn't think telling his father about Charlie being blindfolded, locked up in a basement somewhere, would be a good idea.

"Then what happened, where is Charlie?"

"We didn't find him, Dad, I'm sorry, We have a suspect in custody. He is a suspect in several kidnapping. He will talk." Don said and let himself slide down on the couch.

"Don, what else happened? There is blood on your tee-shirt, you have lost your shirt and your hands are shaking no matter how much you want to hide it."

"It was a nightmare, Dad." Don sighed.

"What is it, is Charlie dead? Don tell me?"

"No, we didn't find any bodies. We found some blood, but it will take some time to know whose blood it is."

"You want to tell me how all the blood got on your tee-shirt?" Alan sat down next to his son.

"We stormed the house, routine procedure. We thought everything was secure, and then out of nowhere, the suspects appeared and and attacked two agents. Terry was one of them."

"How is she?"

"The paramedic said she will probably make it." Don left out the part about spinal damage. Dad had enough on his mind with Charlie.

"She is going to be fine, Don." Alan put a hand on his shoulder. "Today you're staying home. Now, I'm going to make us some breakfast."

Don didn't object, even though he knew that he was probably going to return to the Office in the afternoon. For now he would let Dad take care of him, with one son lost, he needed to be able to protect the other one.

oOo

When Don had showered and changed, he returned to the ground floor. He could smell beacon and eggs, the kind of breakfast he liked, not the CHEERIO stuff that his brother preferred.

"Sit down." Alan waved to a chair. He filled him a plate. and set it down in front of Don and then prepared himself a plate.

"Thanks Dad for making the effort, especially today.!"

"I can't spend all day sitting on the sofa, waiting for a call from the FBI." Alan said an shrugged.

"The best people are working on this." Don said.

"What was Charlie doing at a crime scene in the first place? It's fine when he consults for the Bureau, he has the skills for that. But he isn't trained for being out there, Don. But Charlie can't say no, he doesn't realize the differences between numbers on a whiteboard and reality." Alan burst out.

"It's Charlie's choice. We never take civilians into hostile situations. Visiting an old crime scene is not considered hostile and Charlie was free to accompany Terry there. It was his choice. Charlie is an adult, Dad."

"The risk your job may be clear to you and Terry, but that is not Charlie's world." Alan said and his time made it clear that this was his final word.

Don finished his breakfast in silence, took the dishes into the kitchen, then he headed out to his car. He needed to be alone. His father was blaming him, he was blaming himself. He needed to get out.

_December 17, 2005_

_Apartment of Don Eppes_

Don emptied his overflowing mailbox and headed upstairs to his apartment. Don unlocked the door and dumped the mail on his desk. He swung by the kitchen to pick up a bier, but found no beer in the fridge. Slightly bewildered, he checked his box of empty bottles. There were no where to find. Don was half convinced that he had forgotten to buy the six-pack. Robbery for a six-pack was unlikely. All his electronics were still there, the few dollars he had had in his desk were still there and nothing looked disturbed. Don gave up on his suspicions and turned to his mail. Advertising, more advertising, a bill from his ISP and an unmarked envelope. It couldn't have been sent through the mail, someone must have dropped it off personally. Don peeled open the envelope. It contained a single page of white paper. In the right edge was a 'Z' with a slash through it. In childish letters the words: _Hänsel and Gretel are lost in the woods. _Kessler had said the same this morning. A fairy tale. There was no indication that Kessler was into kids. Terry had profiled him is not sexually deviant. _Woods - _Kessler had dumped three victims that they knew of in city or state parks. Kessler liked to carve into trees. He had kidnapped Charlie - Hänsel. Who was Gretel? Rita Ortiz? Was she a victim and nobody had registered. The investigation into her disappearance had stalled from the beginning. The call that Rita Ortiz had received the day she had disappeared indicated something family related. But if the call had nothing to do with her disappearance, the playing field was level once again.

The doorbell rang. Don walked over and opened.

"Good morning! You have got a delivery." The delivery guy smiled and held a cubic package.

Don frowned. "Who is it from?"

"One Gretel Princess, no return address. Are you taking it?"

Gretel - Princess. What had Kessler said this morning? The princess had dropped a golden ball into a well? And Gretel and Hänsel just in the letter.

"Yes, I'm accepting it. Where do I need to sign."

"Here." The delivery guy indicated the spot. Don signed and took the package inside.

He had no doubt that both then letter and the package where from Kessler. He must have known that they were on to him and have sent these in advance.

Don went to fetch a knife from the kitchen and opened the package. It contained a letter and a golden plastic sphere about the size of a grapefruit. The princess with the ball of gold. Why was Kessler sending him one? Don opened the letter. Again, in the right edge was the Z-sign. Don read the letter. _The princess dropped her golden ball into the well. _

This wasn't going anywhere. He had to talk to Kessler, ask him about the letters and the golden ball.

He pulled out his cell-phone and was about to call David, but then remembered that David was still in Reno and didn't even know what had happened in LA. Don checked his watch, it was 11.24 a.m. David's flight was landing in one hour. Don decided to pick him up from the airport.

_December 17, 2005_

_LAX, Los Angeles_

David had spotted Don immediately and made his way through to him.

"Don. Any news?" David asked.

"We busted our best suspect and not only did the bust go bad, we found nothing."

"God. What happened?"

"The guy had a knife, he got to Varitek and Terry. Nobody knows how that could have happened. Terry told at the scene that the guy came out of nowhere. He overwhelmed two agents with gun an he only had one knife. It's still a mystery. CSU is going over the place right now."

"And you found nothing linking him to the murders?"

"We found a bloody towel and a pair of handcuffs. If we find DNA from one of his victims on them, it might get us to kidnapping, but not murder. We didn't even find the TR-45 cap or any of those dice, "

"Has he said anything yet?" David asked.

"No, he got winged in the bust." But from what he said while threatening us with a knife, he didn't appear too sane. How did it go in Reno?"

"The Catholic School is a definite match. I talked to the two girls who had to paint over the graffiti, they confirmed it was the signature. I talked to the local detectives who investigated Simon Johnson's murder. The investigation never went anywhere. In the Roger Danton case, I was able to look at photographs of a chalk drawing at the scene, but it was partially washed away by rain. It's pretty likely, but not 100. Detective Waterstone did me the favour to go through her old files and she found another case where the same symbol was sprayed on the wall. Charlie's search probably didn't find that case because it was ruled a suicide."

"That would be breaking the MO completely. Staging a suicide. " Don theorized.

"It's a bit far back anyways, happened in 1961, Louisa Lawrence, 27 years was recently divorced, not common for that time. Her children stayed with the father, because Louisa was allegedly an unfit mother. She had two sons, one born in 1950, to other born in 1952, a daughter born in 1956 died at age 2 under suspicion circumstances. No arrest was ever made, but police suspected Louisa. The couple separated and in 1961 Louisa hung herself. Nobody paid any attention to the symbol that was drawn on the wall of the barn she was found in."

"Our guy, Adam Kessler is too young to be involved in that."

"Then were did he pick up the symbol?"

"The press maybe. It might not be as unique as we think."

They arrived at Don's car. Don opened the door and gestured for David to get in and then got behind the wheel.

"Where are we headed?" David asked.

"To the office. Unless I should drop you off at home first." Don answered, never taking his eyes from the street.

"I don't think going to the office is such a good idea. I'm not saying that you can't do your job, but this is all very close to you. Your brother is missing."

"Exactly! I want to make sure that every lead is exhausted in finding him. Dad is already blaming me for him going missing in the first place."

"I'm sure your father is just worried about him."

"Well, worrying isn't doing us any good." Don exclaimed. "This morning I got mail from Kessler. Some sort of riddle."

"I thought he was in custody." David asked.

"He is. He probably posted them yesterday." Don said, making a turn leading them towards the direction of the field office.

_December 17, 2005_

_FBI DNA lab, Los Angeles_

The technician had already expected them when Don and David came in. She had paged them, saying that she had evaluated some of the evidence from Kessler's home.

David and Don stepped into the white room. The technician waved them over to her desk.

"Hey. Here you are. You get this before the report is written. I analysed blood samples from a towel, possible skin scrapings from handcuffs and blood sticking to the handle of one of the knives."

"And what did you find?"

"The blood on the towel is from Kessler, there was no useable DNA on the cuffs and the blood on the knife came back canine."

"He killed a dog."

"Looks like it. Sorry guys. Check with Diane from trace, I think she got something for you too, hope it's better news.

A few doors further, they found the trace lab and Diane.

"Who let you in?" Diane fixated them.

"We are here about the serial case."

"Normally, we write the report and you wait for us to send it to you." Diane returned.

"We are in a hurry. There has been a kidnapping and we need to know all we can and we need to know it now." David explained firmly.

"Sit down." Diane took place behind her desk and pulled out a folder.

"The scene was one of the cleanest I have ever seen. We processed the rooms downstairs, found nothing interesting, except for sawdust. Not just any saw dust, dust from elderberry wood. From upstairs, we took a pair of dirty boots we are still analysing the dirt, we'll try to match it to a specific region, but this doesn't always work. We sifted through his trash, but aside from food wrappings, there was nothing, no receipts, nothing. That was that for the house. Your guy was a neat freak."

"The car?"

"I was getting to that. Suspiciously few fibres. He cleaned up, but good. We found a few white cotton fibres in the trunk. Could be from a tee-shirt, towel, virtually anything. We found one hair, that might belong to someone other than the owner. A long dark hair. Could be female. DNA on that is pending."

"Thank you." David said. Don and David left the trace lab, David was already on the way back to their office when Don stepped at the reception.

"Good morning. I'm Agent Eppes. Who is the case manager for the serial man murder case?

The receptionist took a quick glance at his badge then typed something into her computer.

"What case number would that be?"

Don shrugged, he didn't know about a case number until he wrote a final report and the case was close, or when a case remained open, when active investigation was discontinued.

"The scene was at 46 Polk Street. Maybe you can see who was in chare of the CSU crew there?" David asked.

"Sure, that was Dr. Yates. Her office is second floor to the right." The receptionist answered.

Don and David walked up to the second floor and Don knocked on Dr. Yates' door.

They were answered and entered.

Dr. Yates sat behind cluttered desk, surrounded by shelves piled with files.

"Hello." Dr. Yates nodded. "What can I do for you?"

"We are working the case involving Adam Kessler."

"I understand. Sit down."

"What can you tell us? We can't talk to the suspect right now, and a man is missing, so we need to know everything we can about Adam Kessler." Don explained.

"I assume you have already talked to DNA and trace, but some results are still pending, as far as I know. We examined the ground for disturbances, indicating possible burial sites. We found the skeleton of a mid-sized dog buried in the back of the garden. There were no other indications of burials. We collected all items from the garden."

Dr. Yates reached for a sheet.

"There were a hammer, two shovels, a spade, a screwdriver, some wire, empty bottles and old newspapers. We tested the tools for blood, they were all negative. We tested the remnants in the bottles. It was wine, a drug screen is still pending. That's all there is."

_December 17, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

Don was staring at his mail from Kessler, trying to make sense of it all. He had drawn up a cast list, trying to match up real people with figures from Kessler's fantasy world.

David stepped up to Don.

"Don. They brought over Kessler."

"Yeah." Don didn't look up. "I ran Kessler through the computer. His social security number is fake, so is his driver's licence. Kessler doesn't exist. We know nothing about him. But his prints or DNA aren't in the system anyways." Don said.

"When did Kessler first step on the radar?" David asked.

"In 1993 when he bought his house. He has never applied for a weapon's permit, nor has he left the country. But we know he has a gun stashed somewhere. We didn't find it at his house, so he must have another hide-out somewhere. I'm already searching through property records to find out to see if he has land somewhere else." Don said.

"We will find Charlie. It's only a matter of time." David said. "Come on, let's talk to Kessler."

oOo

Adam Kessler sat in his chair, arms folded over his chest. He exuded a kind of calm that Don had never seen, not even with the smuggest criminals who thought the FBI could not prove them anything. Unfortunately the evidence against him was rather thin, but Don was hoping that they could use the security camera footage to put Kessler under pressure. With enough pressure, Kessler would give it up.

"Kessler, where were you on the night of December 13th?"

"The cruel stepmother made Cinderella work. But Cinderella wanted to go to the Ball."

"You were caught on camera that night Kessler. You were stealing a car. And we know what was in the car. A body. A body that you dumped in Maguire Gardens."

"Many get lost in the forest. Hänsel and Gretel walked through the forest, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs."

"The forest. Is that were you leaving the bodies?" Don decided to play along.

"The forest is filled with creatures, some of them, wicked and evil."

"The men you killed, were they wicked and evil?"

"The princess of afraid of the wolf, but she trusted Hänsel." Don thought back of his cast list, if Charlie was Hänsel, was the princess a girl that Kessler had snatched?

"The princess and Hänsel are lost in the forest, aren't they?" Don tested whether he understood the rules of Kessler language.

"No, the princess dropped a golden ball into the well." Kessler nodded vigorously.

Don put the golden ball that Kessler had sent him on the table.

"That was my clue?"

"The princess dropped a golden ball into the well. But time, but time..."

"Where are Hänsel and Gretel?" Don asked, hoping that Kessler trusted him enough to tell him, even if he was using his coded language.

"The wicked witch found them." Kessler. "But Gretel is a wicked girl, she is an evil girl. She helped the wolf. But she is not as smart as she thinks she is." Kessler laughed.

Don shook his head. This was probably as far as he was going to get.

"Mr Kessler, we know of at least six men that you killed? You are going to prison for the rest of your life. You are doing yourself a favour of you confess now and tell us where the hostages are now. " David tried.

Kessler cocked his head and eyed David.

"You have nothing." Kessler spat.

That was the last thing Kessler sat. Don and David tried for thirty more minutes, but Kessler remained silent. In the end, they had him taken back to lock-up.

David opened the window and leaned outside. "We accused him of serial murder and he never asked for a lawyer."

"You saw him, I'm not sure what to make of him, I'm sure that's not just a game that he is playing, there is something pathological to it."

"All serial killers are psychopaths or sociopaths." David said. "What do we really know?"

"He has Charlie and someone else, and I think her name is Anna." Don said.

"Anna? You remember what Terry said, the symbol is a riddle in itself, it codes A-N-N-A."

"The well is making me think. He mentioned the well several times and then he said something about time. What if he has them in a hole in the ground, a well. As soon as it rains time starts running out." Don speculated.

"It's one theory and the best we have so far." David said. "I say we work it. Tomorrow we can talk to Kessler again."


	12. December 17, 2005 Part 4

_December 17, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

Don, David and Curtis sat at the briefing table, studying map.

"This is impossible." Curtis complained. "There are just too many wells. Maybe our search radius is too wide."

"Until we know for sure in what region Kessler has been recently, we have to search a broad area. And it might not even a well, but we have to start somewhere." David said. Their nerves were all frayed. Don got up from his chair and ran a hand through his hair.

"We are missing something. I'm going back to the scene. I can help wondering about what Terry said: He came out of nowhere."

"I'm coming with you." David got up as well.

_December 17, 2005_

_Residence of Adam Kessler, Los Angeles_

David's blue sedan was parked at the curb in front of Kessler's off-white suburban home. The perfect home, on the outside. The driveway was paved, and not one hair of grass was visible between the tiles. Kessler had kept up the perfect front. That had become apparent when agents had talked to Kessler's neighbours. According to them, he had been friendly, had been giving gifts around for Christmas, and been great with children. He was known as a great storyteller.

Don walked parked his car behind David's and walked up to the house. It was late and the van of the forensics crew was no where in sight. They probably had left already. The door was ajar and Don entered. The light in the corridor was off, but he could see coming from the living room on the second floor. Don went upstairs and looked around the room. It was strangely empty. Sofa, couch table, TV, kitchenette, shelf unit, wardrobe. No bed, no desk, no chairs.

The room didn't look lived in. Don went into the kitchen and looked through all the cabinets. All he found were four bottles of dark red liquid and a jar of cookies. Don unscrewed one of the bottles and sniffed. Wine, but not ordinary wine.

"David, can you come over for a sec."

"Sure." David walked into the kitchen. "I was checking out the bathroom. Nothing unusual there. Just lots of pills, this guy is ill."

"Smell this. What is this?"

David smelled the liquid.

"Elderberry. Like the sawdust in the stripped rooms."

"What that?" David examined the cookie jar. "Cookies?"

"Isn't this a fairy tale?"

"Baking, brewing, stealing the queens child. He arranged this. The kitchen is empty. Just cookies, wine, and the princess he was going on about. He really kidnapped a child."

"We haven't heard of any local kidnappings."

"He planned it all and waited to be caught. It's a game. He challenges us to find the hostages in time."

"We should who the missing girl is." David said and turned to leave the room. Don followed him, but he stopped in the doorway.

"What's wrong?"

"There is no light switch. No way to turn off the light." Don looked around the room. "It's been on all day."

David thought back to the morning. "Don, remember when we were in the garden. The window, it was at the right side of the house, but there were a few meters between the window and the wall. But in this room, the window is directly at the wall. There has to be a room behind this wall. He pointed at the right wall. Don opened the wardrobe and pushed away the close. The inside was covered with the same wallpaper as the room. Don could feel a depression at one side of the back wall. He leaned with all his weight against the back wall and stumbled into the room on the other side of the wall.

This room was slightly smaller, but seemed more lived in. An unmade bed stood in the corner, a desk at the far wall. Several books were piled on the desk. A few notebooks were stacked on the desk. A lone landscape painting was on the wall.

"David, come over." Don called. He started with the desk. He went through the pile of books first. "Collected Fairy Tales", "Modern Fairy Tales", "Classic Fairy Tales".

David came over to the room and joined Don at the desk. He pulled open a drawer. It was full of wallets. David pulled out a handkerchief and carefully opened one.

"'UCLA student ID. Vaughn Tanner." David read. "He kept them all. He knew we would eventually find them, he didn't care about getting caught."

"There is a notebook for each one." Don noted as he flipped through the notebooks. He stalked them, made photographs, kept logs, collected news paper articles. The most recent one is on a little girl. Probably the princess. Her name is Anna Benito, eight years old." Don scanned the pages." He found out her family was illegal and figured the parents wouldn't report her missing. It worked. We have her address know, we should notify the parents."

David tried another drawer. He found the cap from TR-45 and ten yellow Zocchihedra. "It's all posed. Left for us to find." David commented.

"There is a notebook on Charlie." Don said tonelessly, as he flipped through the pages of photographs of his brother on campus, shopping, then more disturbing pictures, Charlie blindfolded. David gently took the notebook from Don's hand.

"We can have someone from AV analyse the pictures for any clues about their location. You don't need to do this to yourself."

David glanced around the room. "There are two things we don't know yet, and I don't think that Kessler wants us to find out. Who he really is and where his money is coming from? Help me flip the mattress."

David and Don flipped the mattress, but found nothing. Next, David took the painting down.

"There we go." Taped to the back of the painting, was an envelope. David tore it open. He read the letter. "It's gibberish. EIN TOT GAG EGH NAN CIK."

Don nodded while he was mentally already pursuing another idea. He pushed the bed towards the far wall, revealing a trap door in the floor.

"I realized that the room under this is also too small." He said when David looked at him questioningly.

Don opened the trap door. It revealed a ladder, leading down. Don climbed down the ladder. The room was a bare as the rest of the rooms on ground level. But it hadn't been stripped, the floorboards were intact, as was the wall paper. The dark red spatter on the wall was impossible to overlook.

"What do you think happens when they go over the floor with luminol?" Don asked darkly.

"It's going to light up like a Christmas tree." David answered.

_December 17, 2005_

_Mount Siani Hospital, Los Angeles_

Don came to the hospital armed with flowers, the recording of his interrogation with Kessler and copies of the notebooks they had found in Kessler's secret room.

He had asked the receptionist for the room number and was now in the elevator riding up to the second floor. The elevator opened and Don stepped out. He went along the doors, counting his way to 216. He knocked and received a reply, but when he came in, Terry already had another visitor. Don didn't know the man, but he didn't look too happy about Don showing up.

"I can come back later if this is inconvenient." Don said, ready to leave.

"No, it's all right." Terry said. „Peter was already leaving."

Peter didn't look pleased, but gathered his jacked and left. Don settled on the chair on Terry's bedside.

"How are you, Terry?"

"Not bad. Lots of stitches. I got lucky. The wounds were all fairly superficial, even where he stabbed me." Terry said. "How is Varitek doing?"

"Fine, he is going to be released tomorrow."

"Thank God. I asked the nurse about him, but she wouldn't tell me anything." Terry said.

"It's not your fault Terry. We found out why you didn't see him when you searched the room for the first time. There is a hidden door leading to a second room. He probably hid in there and surprised the two of you. It could have happened to anybody."

Terry visible brightened at the news.

"What's the news on the case?"

"Kessler is playing a game with us. I brought you a recording of our interrogation and his notebooks. If you feel up to it, you can look through them. We now know that Kessler kidnapped a girl along with Charlie and he challenges us to find them. Besides he has he weird obsession with fairy tales. He only talks to us in riddles. He left us a clue at his house, but we haven't deciphered it yet."

"How are you holding up?"

"What do you mean?"

"You brother is missing, Don. You haven't eaten, you haven't slept. Have you talked to Alan?"

"I tried to. He blames me for what happened."

"He doesn't. He is just worried. Go home."


	13. December 18, 2005 Part 1

_December 18, 2005_

_Briefing Room, FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

The task force on Kessler's case was assembled in the briefing room. On the white board were pictures of all his victims, arranged by date.

"We are certain we have arrested the man responsible for at least six murders during the time from 1968 to 2005. Wallets and other personal possessions were found at the residence of Adam Kessler. Clothing fitting a man that was caught on security footage was also found at his house. We also found written records and photographic evidence detailing the kidnapping and subsequent murder of the six men. The most recent journals described the kidnapping the eight year old Maria Benito and twenty-eight year old Charles Eppes. WE operate under the assumption that they are still alive. Our priority is the locate them. A second priority is to discover Kessler real identity. Adam Kessler is an alias first used in 1993, we don't know the name under which he previously lived." David summarised.

"Agent Sinclair and I interrogated Kessler yesterday without much success. He alluded to the kidnappings and indicated that time was running out. Based on what he said, our current theory is that he trapped his victims in some sort of hole or well and that our time will be up when it rains. Kessler regards it all as a game, he is challenging us to find them in time. AV is running the photographs for any clues in the background for any clues for where he has stashed them."

"What's the weather forecast?" Agent Curtis asked.

"Rain for tomorrow night and the day after tomorrow. We have 36 hours to find the hostages." David answered." If nothing pops until tomorrow, LAPD is going to loan us a class of cadets to comb through possible locations."

"Have we been able to identify possible locations yet?" Agent Santana asked.

"Not yet, Adam Kessler doesn't own any property. We have pulled maps from the adjacent counties and marked all wells. If we have too, we'll search them all. But we hope that once we identify Kessler's other aliases, we can figure out likely locations. We have sent his picture out to all regional offices."

"All right, there is plenty to do. Let's get started!" David announced. The agents gathered their files and left the briefing room. Don and David stayed behind.

"You didn't bring up the Zorro symbol." Don commented.

"I have a theory about that. It might lead us to who Kessler really is. Remember I told you about the suicide where the symbol was painted on the barn. What if young Kessler saw it there for the first time and was fascinated with it?"

"You think he is the woman's son?"

"It's worth investigating what happened to the sons. It might lead no where, but we aren't exactly drowning in leads right now."

"Okay, I'll Reno send over the files on the suicide case and anything they might have on the family members. Divorce, custody cases, medical histories, criminal records, the works." Don said. It was one more possibility, but her felt like they were grasping at straws. The only person who knew where to find Charlie and the girl had no intention of telling them.

"Agents?" Agent Santana stood in the doorframe. "I pulled everything there was on Kessler and found something interesting."

"What is it?" David asked.

"I pulled is medical records. Kessler is dying. A brain tumour, untreatable. I talked to the prison physician and he is Kessler has only a couple of weeks left at the best."

"Thanks for letting us know. Do you have the records?"

"Yes." Agent Santana handed him the file and left.

"That takes away any leverage we might have had. He has nothing to lose. He knows he is never going to trial. Nothing changes if he lets Charlie and Anna die." Don said. "Listen, David. I dropped copies of Kessler's notebooks off with Terry to see what she thinks of him. I'm going to check in with her."

"Sure. I'm going to talk to the Benitos."

_December 18, 2005_

_Apartment of Rosa and Juan Benito, Los Angeles_

Rosa Benito poured David a cup of tea, then she sat down on the couch. She was obviously nervous, wringing her hands, avoiding eye contact with David.

"You said you had information about Anna." Rosa said in a soft voice.

"Yes, ma'am. Is this your daughter?" David showed Rosa a picture that Kessler had taken when he was shadowing Anna.

"Yes, that is my Anna. What happened to my little girl?"

"We think she was kidnapped."

"Kidnapped? We have nothing, mister, no money." Rosa sniffled.

"The man who took your daughter doesn't want money."

"Then what is he doing to her, she is only eight years old. My poor girl..." Rosa wiped her eyes.

"We don't think he harmed your daughter. We have already arrested him. He can't hurt her."

"Then where is Anna?"

"We are still looking for her." David reassured her, but no it wouldn't mean much to a mother who was missing her daughter.

"How can that be?"

"We are doing everything we can. Have you gotten any strange letters in the mail or any parcel from people you don't know?"

"Yes, there was something." It came on Anna's birthday. "We thought it was a gift."

"Can you please get it for me?"

Rosa went over in the other room an returned with a marionette. She handed it to David.

"When was Anna's birthday?"

"Two days ago. She disappeared the same day." Rosa was near tears. "We though they took Anna because my husband owes money."

"No, we don't think this has anything to do with your husband's debts. I will have to take the marionette with me. But you will get it back." David said. "Now, can you tell me about the day Anna disappeared? Start at the beginning."

"It was a normal day. I made breakfast for us. Juan went to work, Anna went to the bus stop. Anna didn't come back from school that day. I waited until Juan came back from work, then I called all her friends, but no one had seen her."

"Thank you."

_December 18, 2005_

_Woodrow Elementary School, Los Angeles_

Principal Ryan sat behind her desk as her secretary showed David in.

"Good morning, Ms. Ryan. I'm Agent Sinclair with the FBI. I have a few questions about a student in your school, Anna Benito."

"Sit down. And yes, Anna Benito is a student here in the third grade. Give me a second to pull up her file." Ms Ryan replied.

"You didn't ask why I'm here, My Ryan." David remarked.

Ms. Ryan looked up. "I assume you are here because Anna is missing. Her mother called me. I urged her to go to the police, but she was afraid her family would be deported back to Mexico."

"So you knew her family was here illegally?"

"I don't ask those kind of questions." Ms Ryan smiled.

"Was Anna in school on December 16h?"

"Yes, she was in school all day. I told her mother the same. Nothing happened on the school grounds. We have tight security. Nobody gets on the premises."

"I would still like to talk to Anna's class mates and her teacher. Somebody might have seen something." David said.

"All right. I don't see why this is necessary, but you can talk to whoever you want. The break starts in ten minutes."

_oOo_

David stood in front of Anna's class. Their teacher Mr Zimmerman, had told them to stay in during the break so that David could talk to them.

"I'm David and I'm working for the FBI. I'm looking for your classmate Anna. You know she hasn't been to school yesterday and today. Her parents are very worried about her. I'm helping them find her. Were any of you with Anna after school two days ago?" David asked the class.

"We went to buy sweets." One girl said.

"Mary-Ann, why didn't you take the bus home?" Mr Zimmerman asked.

"My parents are never home and it was Anna's birthday, she had money, so we went to the store." Mary-Ann replied.

"What store did you go to?"

"The Seven-Eleven by the school."

"What happened next?"

"Charlie invited us to Burger King. He was real nice. He bought us ice cream."

"Who is Charlie?"

"He is nice." Mary-Ann said.

TBC


	14. December 18, 2005 Part 2

_December 18, 2005_

_Mount Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles_

Terry was reading in one of Kessler journals when Don came in.

"Hey Don. I didn't expect you during the day." Terry put the journal down on the pile with the other journals.

"Terry." Don pulled up the chair and sat down. He ran a hand through his hair. "I can't tell you how crazy I feel. I can't focuses when I'm in the office, but I can't stand to be at home. I haven't slept at all last night. Dad isn't sleeping either."

"You have to rest at some point. You're not doing anyone a favour in this state."

"It's easier said than done."

"Anything new on the case?"

"Nothing. We are running on the well-theory. Kessler is not giving them up, and we have no leverage. Kessler is dying of cancer; he has weeks at the best. Our best bet right now is the analysis of the pictures in the journals, but it's going slow."

"I read the journals and listened to your tape and made a few notes. I'm afraid I don't have much news for you, but I think there might be one way you can put Kessler under pressure."

"I'm listening."

"Kessler kills older men. The classic father figure. He locks his victims in a dark hole without windows for days, before he kills them. I think he is staging he scene from he was a child. Quite possibly, he was locked into a cellar or a similar place and left there for days when he was a child. "

"So you think he was abused?"

"Probably. He probably never had the courage to stand up to his father, he is killing stand-ins instead." Terry explained.

"What about Vaughn Tanner, the UCLA student, he was nineteen years old when he disappeared. We know he was killed around the same time."

"Maybe a trial run. The MO in is first killing is different from the others, and Tanner is the only body that he made sure no one would find. He cemented him into the floor." Terry said.

"Makes sense." Don said.

"You said Kessler is dying and he knows it. He has prepared for this."

"Yes, he knows we would find him, he put the evidence there for us to find. He is playing a game with us. He has given us clues. We just don't understand them." Don shook his head.

"I have an idea. What was in the letter David and you found in the house?"

Don grabbed Terry's notebook, flipped to a new page and wrote down:

EIN TOT GAG EGH NAN CIK

Terry looked at the sequence.

"We are probably supposed to rearrange the letters." Terry guessed. "Or not. EIN and TOT are German words, meaning one and dead."

"Wow, you speak German?"

"Yeah, majored in forensic psychology, minored in German lit. I guess I was bored." Terry replied. "But just there a few words that I can spot right now rearranging the letters, AT, IN, BACK, GO, GONE, CAN, HACK, TAG, TIN, BAG, THE"

"Try what you get with BACK AT, BACK IN, GO TO, GO BACK TO, TAKE BACK." Terry scribbled in her notebook.

"Most of them don't leave combinations that make sense." She said, crossing out letters.

"Let me see." Don leaned over to see what Terry was writing.  
"Look at that, when you write: GO BACK TO, you are left with: NNNIIGGEEBTH. Rearrange that and you get: GO BACK TO THE BEGI NNING."

"Vaughn Tanner, the kid from UCLA?" Terry questioned. "I read the notebook. Kessler stalked him for the whole summer, before he killed him. Tanner worked at a diner as a dish washer. It doesn't say where he first met Tanner, but he met him before the end of the semester. For the first week or so, he follows Tanner around on campus. I would pull student files from 1968."

"I don't see how that can help us. We don't know Kessler's real name? We only know that he has stayed under the radar for about fifty years. "

"I agree it's frustrating, but we both know the drill."

"I know, I know, it just seems that we never catch a break on this one. I'll pull the county records from Reno from 1988 and 1992 and compare them to students at UCLA from 1969. Something might pop." Don sighed.

"Go home, Don. You and your father need each other right now." Terry told Don.

"You know I can't. I have to see this through." Don said. "If I step away now, I'll never forgive myself later."

"Since you are not letting this go anyways, I have a question for you. I read your interview notes. You think that Rita Ortiz is involved?"

"Kessler definitely hinted at another woman being involved. With have the princess, Anna Benito, the Hänsel, Charlie, and Gretel, another woman. As Kessler said a wicked and evil woman. He identifies himself and his cause with evil."

"That makes sense, but doesn't explain what Rita has to do with it. Even if Kessler got to her, which the more I learn about him, the more I think is possible, why would she help him? Kessler is an intelligent sociopath who is acting out his power fantasies. First against his father, now in a finale, against authority. This is his endgame."

_December 18, 2005_

_Florenceway Rest-Stop, Los Angeles_

Don climbed out of his car at the bus rest-stop. He wasn't sure what he expected to find here. He knew both agents and CSU had been over the scene and had found nothing revealing. Don stepped on the sidewalk and flipped open the file he had brought with himself. He decided to retrace Terry and Charlie's steps.

First, he headed towards the picnic tables and the tress behind them. Easily, he found the tress with the symbol carved into it. He sat down on the bench and looked around. Only a small part of the parking cars where obscured by the building. But Kessler must have parked close to the back exit of the store, obscured from this side of the parking lot. Don stepped forwards to where his car was parked and turned around. He could see the entire parking lot. Terry would only have to turn around and she would have seen Charlie. Kessler had to have parked somewhere else. Don jogged to the building and did a walk around. There was a parking space by the fire-exit marked 'Deliveries only'.

Don went around to the front and entered the store. He walked to the register.

"Hello. What can I help you with?" The woman asked.

"I'm with the FBI. I have a few more questions about the incident a few days ago."

"Ah, the guy who was kidnapped. Guess you haven't found him yet."

"No we haven't. When are your deliveries normally arriving?

"5.30 a.m., we open at six."

"Did you ever have any visits from salesmen or unscheduled deliveries?"

"Yeah, we have some salesmen here every month. Snacks, soda, sandwiches..."

"The day my colleagues were here, did you get a visit from a salesman?"

"Could be. A guy came by. He was selling juice. Gave us a free case and left his card. Was a nice guy for a change." The woman said.

"Do you still have the juice and the card?" Don asked. He had his suspicion that the friendly salesman might have been Kessler checking out the scene and on his way out, leaving the fire door open.

"Not sure about the card. We weren't going to buy his stuff. The boss let me have the case."

"Do you recall the name of the product, or the company it was from?"

"It was berry juice with lemon. Some berry I never heard of. Elderberry. His card must be here somewhere." The woman opened a drawer.

"Here is it." She handed him the card."

Don read it.

Charles Eppes

Prime Fruit Juices

give us a call 5270454913

One of Kessler's games. He was trying to get to them, trying to get into their heads. Don had been there before. Kessler was not the first suspect who had tried to play him, but Kessler was the first one, who had used his family to get to him. And he had to grant it to Kessler, it was working. He could hardly stand to work at the office anymore. Every dead end nearly tore him apart. He tried hard not to let go of hope. But his experience, the FBI statistic and their progress at the case, told him that they were lucky if they ever found Charlie and the girl.

"Thank you." Don put the business card in his wallet. "Could you possibly show me a bottle of the juice the salesman left you?"

"I have one here. You don't think it is poisoned?"

"No, no. We are just running the routine."

The shop attendant went into the back and brought back a half empty bottle of dark juice. Don examined the bottle. The label looked professional, the bottle was immaculate. It read:

_Prime Fruit Juices,_

_Elderberry Juice._

_December 18, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

The woman holding Mary-Ann's hand looked nervous as she stepped into the office. After what David had not gotten any more information from Mary-Ann at the school, he had decided to bring her to the Office and have a child psychologist talk to her. Normally, Terry would have talked to the girl, but now he had no choice, but to involve someone form outside the case.

"Mrs. Reginald. I'm Agent Sinclair; I spoke to your daughter earlier today."

"I don't really understand what is going on here. What do you want from my daughter?" Mrs. Reginald glanced around furtively.

"A classmate of your daughter was kidnapped. Your daughter was the last person to see her. We think she saw the man or men who took the other girl."

"Oh god. Did he harm her?"

"No, not as far as we know. Please come this way. Dr. Warren, your child psychologist will talk to your daughter. We can observe from the other room."

"I'm not sure..."

"Please Mrs. Reginald, the life of a little girl is at stake here and your daughter is the only witness."

"All right." Mrs Reginald nodded.

Dr. Warren joined them, and kneeled down to Mary-Ann.

"Mary-Ann, I'm Susan. I work with David. Can we talk a bit?"

"Sure." Mary-Ann freed herself from her mothers hand and followed Dr. Warren into Dr. Warren's office.

Dr. Warren shut the door behind them.

"Pick a seat."

Mary-Ann sat down at a table with four chairs.

"You want to draw something. Here is paper and there are crayons."

Mary-Ann took a crayon and started.

"Do you like drawing?"

"Yes."

"Do you do Art in school?"

"Yes, it's my favourite subject." Mary-Ann smiled.

"Is Anna in your Art class?"

"Yes, we take almost all classes together. She's my friend."

"Is Charlie also your friend?"

"Mhm, yes." Mary-Ann hesitated.

"Is he Anna's friend?"

"Yes."

"Does Charlie go to your school?"

"No, Charlie is a grown-up. He is a teacher."

"What subject does he teach?"

"He teaches Maths. He told me."

"What else does Charlie do?"

"He likes ice-cream. He bought us ice-cream."

"What happened after you ate ice-cream?"

"I had to go home, because my mom comes home at 6."

"Mary-Ann. I'm going to show you a few pictures; you tell me if you recognize Charlie. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Dr. Warren showed Mary-Ann an array of pictures.

"That's Charlie." Mary-Ann pointed out Charlie.

"I have a few more pictures and I just want to know if you saw any of those people before. Here are a few men."

Dr. Warren showed Mary-Ann pictures including Kessler's.

Mary-Ann shook her head.

"What about these women?" At Don's request, she had included a picture of Rita Ortiz.

"No, I don't know them."

_December 18th, 2005_

_Seven-Eleven, Los Angeles_

"Did you see this man in the store about two days ago?" David asked the shopping assistant.

"Sure, he was here with his daughter and her friend. I thought he was cute. But all the good ones are taken."

"Did you notice anything unusual about his behaviour?"

"Other than that he was cute?"

"Yes, other than that."

"No, they were there, bought sweets, left."

"Did you ever see this man in here?" David showed her Kessler's picture.

"Don't recall him, but lots of folks come in here."

"I need your security tapes from December 16th."

"The tapes get recorded over the next day. I'm sorry."

_December 18th, 2005_

_Burger King, Los Angeles_

"Did any of you see this man here about two days ago? He was with two little girls?" David asked the group of three employees.

"It might be the weird guy." One of them replied.

"Weird in what way?" David asked.

"First he paid with a hundred. When I said I would take the hundred, he just left. Without his hundred bucks. It was probably a nut job. I mean who writes on his bills?"

"There was something written on the bill?"

"Yes, it said HELP, CALL POLICE."

"It didn't occur to you to actually call the police? I need to note."

_December 19, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

David was reading the forensics report from the hidden rooms in Kessler's house when Don came back to the office.

"Don. Where the hell where you? I tried to call you a dozens of times. I thought you were going to check something with Terry."

"I did visit Terry." Don said and grabbed a seat.

"And? You left eight hours ago. "

"I was checking out a lead. But I'm not sure it is going anywhere. Just more of Kessler's crazy games. He went to the rest-stop shore, pretending to be a salesman, the day he kidnapped Charlie. He probably checked out the area, would explain why the fire door was open when he kidnapped Charlie. He gave the attendant this."

Don put the card and the bottle on the table.

"Man, that's twisted. Did you check out the phone number?"

"I called it in from the car, but it's not a phone number." Don said. "It gets us nowhere. Kessler doesn't want us to find them and without him, we will never find them. In twenty-four hours, it will start raining and what are we going to do then?" Don exclaimed.

"We can do a lot in 24 hours, Don. But you need some rest. You go home tonight, the rest of us will work 24/7 until tomorrow night. Tomorrow, I'm going to take another crack at Kessler. And we still have evidence to go through. Our best hope is the photo analysis, Charlie was seen at a Seven Eleven, we pulled the footage, but the photo analysis takes priority."

"What? Charlie was seen? When?"

"Unfortunately two days ago already. He was seen at Seven Eleven and at a burger joint."

"What's going on? What was he doing there?"

"Witnesses saw him with two little girls, Anna Benito and Mary-Ann Reginald. Dr. Warren got Mary-Ann's story and she thinks the girl is telling the truth. According to her, they met Charlie at the Seven Eleven, he bought them sweets, and then he invited them for burgers and ice-cream. Mary-Ann left for home. I'm sorry."

"That can't be. Charlie would never be involved in anything like that." Don shook his head. "Maybe Kessler stuck around and threatened to start shooting of Charlie made a false move."

"Nobody recognized his picture."

"Charlie must have been threatened. Otherwise he would never..."

"We will find out. I don't think he voluntarily got involved either. Before head out, you might want to listen to some of this. The forensics report from Kessler's hidden rooms is in. The blood spatter on the wall belongs to different individuals. Four matches with his for most recent victims. The floor has been bleached several times, making any DNA analysis impossible, but you can see the overlapping blood polls and smears here." David handed Don the picture.

"That was a lot of blood. What's with the footprint there at the edge. What did CSU make of it?"

"There is a better image of it here." David handed it over. "They wrote: size twelve, men's boot, typical work-boots, found on any number of models."

"I didn't read anything about blood on the boots we found in the house."

"I noticed that too. There is quite a bit of stuff that we are still missing despite going over the house twice." Don went over to the white board and took a marker.

"So we are missing: a Smith & Wesson .45, ammo for the gun, the work boots, duct tape, cash, the victim's shoes," Don wrote down the missing items.

"Just confirms what we already suspected. Kessler own another house or a cabin where he stashes the equipment for his killings. But he maintains them probably under an alias."

Don glanced at the map on the wall. Reno and LA. Two states, ten hours of driving.

"David, I think I just had an idea how we can narrow down where Charlie and Anna could be."

"Really? How?"

"I tried to look at it like Charlie would. Then I thought of something. We have Kessler caught on tape at the rest-stop on December 16th around noon, Charlie grabbed was seen with Anna around 6 p.m. the same day, we arrested Kessler on December 17th, around 4 a.m. Kessler only had ten hours to drive out to his hide-out, hide his things, leave Charlie and Anna and be back at the house when we arrested him."

Don grabbed a piece a paper. "At this time of the day, he would need at least two hours to get out of the city; Traffic is slow, maybe 20m/h. Then when he gets on the open road 50m/h. If he travelled four hours, we have a search radius of 140miles. Luckily, some of that is water and densely populated land."

"I say we start with the maps we got from the county office, see how many wells there are listed. Tomorrow we get the LAPD cadets. We can canvas the territory then."

TBC


	15. December 19, 2005 Part 1

_Author's Note: Beta-read by DianeM. _

_December 19, 2005  
Apartment of Don Eppes, Los Angeles_

Don was sitting on the balcony of his apartment, watching the sky, waiting for the sun to come up. Time passed and twilight made way to an overcast sky, the sun never really having a chance to break through the heavy, thick clouds. When a soft drizzle started to fall shortly before 5 a.m., Don knew that it was going to be a bad day. The deck was stacked against them from the start,

He'd driven home to his city apartment relatively early the last evening. He'd had too much beer and had finally fallen asleep in front of the TV for a few precious hours. At 3:30 he'd been up on the balcony. Day four. Without water, Charlie would dead by now. Forty-eight hours and kidnapping according to the statistics. DeWinter would give them only so many days to actively pursue the search. Because a child was involved, the media took a special interest and the unit was under more pressure to find her alive. A missing college professor wouldn't warrant the same level of attention. It was an ugly fact, but it was the truth.

Don went back inside when he couldn't stand the sight of the rain anymore. Opening the fridge revealed gaping emptiness, except for some orange juice. He took a big gulp straight from the bottle, then grabbed his jacket and headed out.

_December 19, 2005  
Eppes Residence, Los Angeles_

Alan was sitting on the couch, hands empty on his lap. The TV was on, but switched to mute. He'd been watching the news, monitoring the weather reports for the latest predication for the coming days. After five hours, he hadn't been able to take it anymore. He had periodically refilled his cup of coffee, but other than that, he had spent the night sitting on the couch, staring into empty space. Don had hardly been home since it had happened. Since Charlie had been taken.

Alan knew that his older son was working day and night to find Charlie and the missing girl. He wouldn't want things to be different, but he wished that his son wouldn't go out every day, risking his life. He had gotten used to Don's job over the years, at least for the most part. You couldn't stop a father from worrying about his sons. After Charlie had been abducted by a killer at gunpoint in plain day, he had realized how easily he could lose his sons.

Don hadn't said much about what had really happened that day and Alan hadn't pressed him for details. He'd gotten the feeling that Don wanted to protect him from a world he normally had no part of. Alan had heard enough on TV. The kidnapping of Charlie and the six-year-old Anna Benito was receiving intense attention both on TV and in the press. Former colleagues, business acquaintances and quite a few of Charlie's friends had called, asking about news and offering their help.

He heard a noise at the door, recognizing the sound of a key being turned in the lock. The door clicked open and shut softly a few seconds later.

"Don?"

"Dad. It's not even six yet. Did you sleep at all last night?" Don stepped into the living room. He was dressed in fresh clothes, unlike the last time Alan had seen him, but fatigue and worry were etched on his face.

"No. Did you?" Alan got up from the couch. "I'm going to make breakfast."

Don followed him into the kitchen. Alan started rummaging through the fridge for eggs and bacon.

"Dad. I'm sorry..." Don began, but broke off. If he hadn't dragged Charlie into working with the FBI in the first place, he would never have been at risk. Charlie hadn't chosen this life.

"Any news?" Alan vigorously whisked together the eggs.

"We have the man responsible in custody, but he isn't talking. But he did say that Charlie and the girl are still alive." Don took the short-cut, not mentioning the pictures found at the house.

"I heard about that on the news. I also heard that this man killed six people. Don?" Alan didn't turn to face him, but Don had never heard his father sound this angry.

"Dad, I'm sorry." He apologized again. "I didn't want to worry you with things we didn't know for certain. The media is latching onto every rumour they can get. You know how it is..."

"Then how is it really?" Alan had abandoned the eggs momentarily for the coffeemaker.

"You know I can't talk about on open investigation." Don wanted to spare his father the details of what Adam Kessler had done to his six past victims.

"Don, Charlie is your brother. It's been four days. I just needed to know." His father no longer sounded angry, he sounded exhausted and tired.

"I understand." Don nodded. "Let's get breakfast ready." Don put a pan on the stove and poured in some oil.

"All right. Just tell me the truth," His father said quietly. It wasn't like Alan to pry into the details of his work for the FBI. If Don or Charlie didn't want to talk about something, then he usually left it at it, trusting his sons to bring it up when they were ready.

Ten minutes later, Alan and Don sat silently at the table. Neither of them felt like eating and the scrambled eggs were cooling fast. Don was on his second cup of coffee, trying to stave off the fatigue from days of little sleep. He was waiting for his father to begin asking questions.

"Do you think you are going to find him?" Alan asked the question Don dreaded most. He knew his father expected him to believe and he desperately wanted to, but with every passing hour he slipped a little more.

"Yes. I believe we still have a chance to find him in time. We are starting a wide area search today with a class of cadets from LAPD. Our chances are pretty good," Don said, knowing it was a lie. But he wanted to believe it.

Alan gave him a long look, said nothing and continued to eat his breakfast. Don couldn't bear to watch him. He got up and took his own plate into the kitchen. Breakfast at home had been a bad idea, and he scolded himself for coming.

He grabbed his cell phone and stepped outside. He dialled Dr. Fleinhardt's number, suspecting that the physicist was already, or still, up.

_December 19, 2005  
FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

Larry was already at the office when Don arrived. He was leaning over the maps the team had gotten from the county office. Even after Terry had solved Kessler's riddle and after Don had managed to narrow down their search area by having a closer look the time between Charlie's and Anna's disappearance, the search area spanning a circle of one hundred forty miles in every direction around the city was far too large.

"Larry, I got you the maps from the Department of Coastal and Water Resources. I really appreciate you and Amita coming in so early. Do you need anything else?" Don had gotten the requested maps for the three surrounding counties. He put them on his desk next to Larry.

"Thanks. I need data. The key to narrowing down the search area is finding out which roads the kidnapper is likely to have frequented. He chose a road to minimize detection, but still efficient to get him to his target."

"The only problem is that we have no idea where that target is. But I think I know what you are getting at," Don replied. "Where is Amita?"

"She's on the phone with Dr. Oliver, one of my colleagues at CalSci. He wrote a very sharp critique of Traffic Flow Theory using the city freeways as a model. The presentation of his critique really didn't go over very well; Oliver almost got laughed out of academia. He and two of his students are still collecting traffic data every week, working on his big theory of modern traffic. He is a bit of a campus legend." Larry smiled.

"Traffic Flow Theory?" Don asked.

"Your basic idea about the mileage was a good start, but it isn't that simple. Traffic has a life of its own. Especially in this city." Larry paused. "Traffic flow theory among others, works with kinematic wave equations, hence the connection to my field. It examines how traffic mixes, how individual cars navigate through traffic and how traffic jams form and behave. Assuming that Kessler started from his home, we can use this theory to trace back the roads with optimal traffic conditions that night," Larry explained.

"I'm not sure what physics has to do with traffic jams, but if you can pin down the most likely places for us to start the search, then I'm all for it," Don nodded. "You said you needed data? What exactly?"

"I'm sure Amita has Dr. Oliver wrapped around his finger by now." Larry looked down for a moment, giving Don the impression that there was history between the two men. "But anything traffic related will be useful. Traffic reports, construction reports, any incidents involving traffic."

"I get the picture. We already checked into accidents and arrests, but Kessler didn't pop up anywhere. Would have been too good," Don said. "I'll get you everything I can. Maybe A/V already has something on the pictures from Kessler's journal. That might narrow it down even further."

When Larry didn't reply. Don stopped. "Everything all right. Narrowing the location where Kessler was going is going to help, right? Or is this one of these - the more data the better - problems?" Don asked, recalling Charlie's problems with mapping Kessler's location from where his victims had been found. There hadn't been enough data, not enough victims to establish a pattern. If he hadn't asked Charlie to work on this case, to establish a geographical profile, Terry would never have taken him to the crime scene. They hadn't talked about what had happened. They'd talked about finding Charlie and the girl, but not about how and why Kessler had gotten to Charlie in the first place. Assigning blame wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't bring his brother back to him and the only person who was truly to blame was Kessler. But his father was blaming him and life just seemed to go on without Charlie.

_December 19, 2005  
AV lab, FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

"From the 247 photographs you gave us, we identified six individuals," the tech explained. "I worked the girl first. She was held in two separate locations. The first is inside a house, probably built or renovated in the 70s from what is recognisable of the wallpaper. The room either has no window, or it has been thoroughly covered. The light source is coming from the ceiling, a single point lamp. Her right wrist is cuffed to the radiator behind her. The radiator model also confirms that the house was built around 1970. The cuffs are standard police issue. What's interesting is that she is missing her socks and shoes, but her feet are clean. She couldn't have been walking barefoot. There are no identifiable injuries."

"I think we already have found that house. The wallpaper was exactly the same, but the girl was gone," Don said, recalling the almost empty house, blood spatter on the empty walls the only sign what had happened inside.

"That's not all I have. There are more pictures of her in different locations. The pictures weren't good because there was little light. The light source is on the floor or the left in the pictures. The wall is concrete and it's curved. It could be a silo, a well, some sort of bunker. There is hardly anything to go on. Chronologically the picture comes after the one taken in the house. You see the chafing on her wrists? It's from struggling against the cuffs. She isn't wearing any in this picture, but she has before." The technician showed him the difference between the images.

"There isn't very much to go on. Tell me you had more luck with the other pictures?" Don hoped that there was something to go on.

"Somewhat. The young man was held in the same room as the girl. I matched a tear in the wallpaper; both pictures were taken in the same room. He was cuffed to the radiator just like her, but his ankles were also bound with duct tape. His shoes and socks are missing as well. The picture doesn't reveal anything we didn't know already. Then there are the pictures taken in front of a concrete wall. From the angle and quality of the light, it's definitely a different room, if not a different building."

"It's in a different building and we need to find it. Anything you can make out in the background?" Don asked.

"Behind the victim, you can see the rungs of a steel ladder. The light is coming from the right of the person taking the picture, about floor level. Some sort of small, but powerful lamp."

"Construction equipment? I'll check into that. We still haven't figured out who Adam Kessler really is."

"This place could be a fall-out shelter of some sort, a well, although the wall doesn't seem to be curved enough, but it could just as well belong to a private building. I have seen some strange video footage from private dungeons."

"I heard it's possible to find reflection of the photographer in the eyes of the person being photographed," Don recalled.

"Yes, that's right. Corneal reflection. But that takes time and resources. And in your case it's not needed since you already have made an arrest."

"I was more thinking about picking up more details about the surroundings," Don said.

"We can do that here, but this will take a while, even if I push it to the top of the pile."

"A six-year-old girl is missing. This case is at the top of your pile. Now, is there any word from that lip reader friend of yours yet?"

"I was going to page you about that. He tried, but only got one sentence from the tape. From what the victim says." The technician played the surveillance video from the store. "Right here. He says '_I'll do whatever you want'. _ Not very revealing, I'm afraid."

"Don't feel sorry too soon. I have more work for you—on the tapes from the Florenceway Rest-Stop. Go back to the opening of the store in the morning and watch out for a salesman. I need everything you can get on him."

TBC


	16. December 19, 2005 Part 2

December 19, 2005

FBI Field Office, Los Angeles

Don pushed open the door to the bullpen and nearly ran into DeWinter.

"Agent Eppes. A moment in my office, please." DeWinter looked serious as he stopped Don.

Don nodded and followed DeWinter. Nothing good was brewing. He hoped DeWinter hadn't called off the search. They hadn't much to go on except Kessler's word, the word of a delusional serial killer.

DeWinter sat down behind his desk and folded his hands in front of him. "Close the door, please."

Don closed the door and took the seat opposite DeWinter. He was tense with anxiety and anticipation. He had high hopes for this day and now he risked being shattered before the search even began. They needed to conduct the search, as long as there was a chance to find his brother alive, and they had to trust Kessler's word and take what they had.

"I have reviewed your recommendation for the search. You have been under a lot of pressure on this case and directing a search of this magnitude isn't an easy manner. Our chances can only increase by taking in the advice of a more experienced agent. Agent Van Hout will lead the search today, but I want you there as well. Agent Van Hout will tell you everything further in the briefing," DeWinter said firmly.

"I understand," Don answered. He didn't like the idea of not being in charge of the search. Only the fact that he was still investigating that case had let him go on with his life after his brother's kidnapping. The focus of the investigation gave him something solid to hold onto and every lead was a source of hope.

"There was another matter I wanted to discuss with you. The internal investigation into the incident during Kessler's arrest has been concluded. Agent Lake has been cleared, but she will have to undergo an evaluation with the Bureau psych services. You should have her back on your team in no time," DeWinter told him. Don had never seen DeWinter this friendly; he was usually strictly professional. He wasn't quite sure what DeWinter was leading up to.

"How are you holding up, Agent Eppes?" DeWinter asked suddenly. Oh, that had been on DeWinter's mind. Don was sure that the lack of sleep and food was showing on his face by now. He had avoided a mirror the last few days. No need to make himself feel worse.

"I'm doing fine. It's a difficult time for our family," he admitted.

"If you need to take some time off, I can assure you that nobody would think any less of you..." DeWinter began.

"After this case is resolved, then I might take some time off," Don said and nodded in agreement. "But at the moment, I'm needed here." He couldn't go, not right now, not until he knew what had happened to Charlie. He couldn't face his father and tell him that he had failed. Don was desperate to find an answer. At this point he was longing to find any answer, as their chances were diminishing rapidly.

"I understand. Agent Van Hout will be waiting for you in the briefing room in fifteen minutes. Good luck with the search." DeWinter got up and shook his hand.

"Thank you, sir."

Don walked back into the bullpen. David was standing at his desk, working on the computer.

"Morning, Don." He looked up briefly.

"Morning." Don sat down at his desk. "Anything new?" He shot a side glance at David's screen.

"Possibly. Adam Kessler is an assumed name, right?"

"Yeah, we have pretty much established that. No tax records, birth certificates, nothing. It's got to be fake." Don shrugged. He wondered why David was asking. They had covered this right after Kessler's arrest. He had been using the name since 1990.

"Remember how we first got on Kessler's trail?" David turned around to face Don.

"The 1968 arrest record! Do we know who the guy in 1968 was?" Don asked, suddenly wide awake. This was the first lead to the real identity of the serial killer. With more and more accurate information about the man they had come to know as Adam Kessler, Terry might be able to construct a more detailed profile and even give them clues as to where he stashed his victims. So far, they were faced with the difficult task of deciphering the killer's riddles and metaphors.

"LAPD hasn't computerized all of their old records yet, so I had to request the file. We'll get it later today. Do you have everything set up for the search?" David asked him in a sudden change of topic.

Don's face darkened. "Agent Van Hout is leading the search instead of me per DeWinter's orders. He's waiting in the briefing room." Don got up from his chair, David followed him and they walked into the briefing room.

oOo

The spacious briefing room with the rectangular centre table was slowly filling up. The room had been stocked with more chairs than usual, to make room for the people involved in the search. Don and David took their seats in the back of the room. Don spotted Agent Varitek back in the office, and several officers from the police department stepped into the room. People were still trickling into the room when Agent Van Hout started the briefing at three minutes past eight. "Everyone listen up". Van Hout loudly clapped his hands and the murmurs in the room died down.

"You have all been briefed; it's been 87 hours since they went missing. We may be looking for bodies already, but we can still find them alive if we are lucky and if we do this efficiently and quickly. Rule number one: search effectively. Rule number two: search thoroughly. Based on accessibility, proximity to the suspect's residence and existing trails, we'll search supercilious areas of Antelope Valley.

Van Hout was interrupted immediately.

"That's over 2,000 square miles!" A few people laughed.

"The killer has deposited past victims in park facilities or areas that are maintained by service personnel of some sort. Four teams will corner search Acton County Park, another four teams will search the surrounding area and shore of Acton Lake. Two marine divers will be able to join us in the afternoon for the rest of the day, but it's not this guy's MO to dump his victims in water. The park areas will take priority." Van Hout explained everything in slow, firm words.

"One agent or officer will head each team of cadets. Sergeant Morgan and I will stay at the checkpoint coordinating the search." Van Hout projected a trail map of Acton Park onto the wall and a large aerial shot of the area next to it.

"We were able to organize two search-and-rescue dogs and two cadaver dogs. Lieutenant Lewis will be handling the cadaver dog and will join the team searching the lake shore," Van Hout explained.

A blond man got up from the front row.

"Pablo and Marge are trained to search for dead tissue, bones and teeth, not trail a specific scent like a search-and-rescue dog. They can smell a cadaver under a body of water to a maximum of 20 feet," Lieutenant Lewis explained briefly. Don realised the implications. Van Hout dealt with the possibility that they were looking for bodies. Don refused to think about the possibility that his brother was that, but the sneaking thought had been creeping into his mind during the night hours more and more frequently during the last two days. Don's thoughts were only interrupted by the continued words of Van Hout.

"We'll commence the search at the two parking spaces, at both ends of therk. If the suspect brought them to the park, he had to stop there. Becker and Teasdale will handle the search dogs. If Kessler was there, the dogs will tell us. We are going to find them." Van Hout sounded very certain.

As the meeting dissolved, Don lingered around, waiting for a chance to speak to Van Hout. He stopped him at the door.

"Agent Van Hout. A word please." Don had to work hard to contain the mixture of anger and anxiety.

"What is it, Agent Eppes?" Van Hout sounded stiff. There was impatience on his face. Don could tell that Van Hout would rather not talk to him right now.

"I think you are making a mistake. You are ignoring our best lead. Kessler is the only one who knows where Charlie and the girl are! I think he wants us to find them and you are ignoring the clues!" Don hadn't meant to yell at Van Hout like this, but the jumble of his thoughts had suddenly turned into words.

"Agent Eppes, I understand that this is a highly personal matter for you, but frankly, I have been at this a lot longer than you have. If you can't handle yourself, you should consider staying at the office," Van Hout said coldly and rushed through the door before Don could return an answer.

Don drew in a sharp breath. Work was starting to grow unbearable as hours and days passed with no results. He couldn't stay at the office while other agents searched the dessert for survivors they didn't believe in.

December 19, 2005

FBI Field Office, Los Angeles

Terry grabbed a cup of coffee before she walked over to her desk. She felt tired and dizzy, mostly on the account of pain medication and lack of sleep the previous few days, but no amount of fatigue would have prevented her from returned to work. Sitting at home would have been agony. Not only did Terry hate the fuzzy feeling of pain medication, she also hated to be idle. TV didn't hold her attention. There was a stack of books on her nightstand, accumulated over years in some cases, but the fog in her mind didn't make reading seem appealing. She shouldn't have driven in the first place, but she had driven intoxicated before. As bad as it was, Terry had managed the traffic all right. The day at the office would be the greater challenge.

Balancing her full cup, she walked over to her desk and set it down next to her computer. Technically she shouldn't be at the office yet, but considering the current caseload, DeWinter was likely to grant the exception silently, as long as she stayed away from the field. So far the office was almost deserted, except for a few agents working at their desks. Something big had to be in progress.

"Good to see you back at the office! How are you doing?" Agent Jackson from the press department stopped by her desk, folder in hand.

"I'm doing fine. Where is everyone?" Terry asked.

"Working on the Kessler case. There's a big search going on in Acton County Park," Jackson replied cheerfully. "Almost everyone is out there. I'm getting the press release ready. I have to run." Jackson hurried off.

Terry leaned back, mentally wishing Don and the others good luck. Four days, it has been four days to get a search going, but they didn't know where to start. Terry hoped that they were searching in the right place; they didn't have much more time. It had started to rain steadily.

Terry tore herself from her musing and turned to her computer; she had a something to accomplish. In the hospital, she had had a lot of time to think about the man who had brought tragedy upon the Eppes family. She had made the best profile she could, with what little she had to work with. She had used statistical knowledge of serial crime, psychological concepts and profiling experience to draw a picture of Adam Kessler. But to completely understand his pathology, as far as anyone could understand the criminal mind, Terry had to go further and know more about the man behind the assumed name. She had stumbled across a possible clue to Kessler's past, so far their only lead. She couldn't go out into the field to join to search, so she could pursue this lead now. If she got lucky, she might uncover the clue to Kessler's delusions.

Terry logged onto the VCAP database. Charlie had already designed the search parameters that had helped them find Kessler's possible crimes, but Terry was looking for something else this time. Not all small town and rural police departments thought to enter data into VCAP, making the system less than perfect and old cases were only slowly being entered. There was a chance that what Terry was looking for was not in the national database. Charlie had focussed on male victims, the upper age range, throats slit. Terry was using the 1961 suicide that Dr. Waterstone in Reno had told them about as a starting point. Changes in victimology were not common, but in crime with no sexual component, there was precedent of serial killers taking victims of varying ages, sexes and races. If there were other cases, she needed to find them. Terry couldn't quite explain why she was sure there was more to find. Kessler was a sociopath, intelligent, but incapable of empathy. Sociopathy was a personality disorder and most psychiatrists believed that sociopaths could not be cured of their criminal and manipulative behaviour. Kessler's life was bound to be threaded with manipulative and violent behaviour that only culminated in homicide.

VCAP could only tell her of crimes with similar characteristics to Kessler's known crimes, that was one half of the whole. Terry closed her eyes for a moment, and then typed in keywords to search for: 'drawing', 'graffiti', 'dice' and 'post-mortem mutilation'. Kessler's first victim in 1968 had a 'Z' carved into his chest before being buried beneath a layer of concrete in his basement for the next thirty years. She thought for a moment, and then limited the search for cases before the 80's or after 2000. Terry hesitated to restrict her search to a specific manner of death just yet. She needed to cut down the potential number of results. Kessler likes knives, which they hadn't been able to identify yet. An ordinary kitchen knife was the prevalent guess at the time. He was also strong enough to break a neck; at least he used to be. The man they had arrested had been on a rapid decline since then.

During his stable period, Kessler would have stuck to his preferred type of victim--an older man, most likely a stand-in for his abusive father. Kessler had strayed from his pattern when he had taken Anna Benito and Charlie. Terry could account this behaviour to the psychological changes caused by Kessler's brain tumour. As his delusions worsened, the sociopath had decompensated. If he hadn't, they would probably have never caught him. Terry started the search. VCAP yielded 127 violent crime cases matching her search parameters. Terry got herself another cup of coffee from the machine in the corner and started working through the entries.

TBC


	17. December 19, 2005 Part 3

December 19, 2005

East Parking Lot, Acton County Park, California

The parking lot was covered in white gravel, the area fenced of the low wooden posts and planks weathered by the seasons. Don stepped out of the black sedan onto the parking area. The sky was overcast and the clouds were heavy with rain, but for the moment, it wasn't raining. The gravel under his shoes was wet, instilling with no confidence, as part of him had hoped for better weather out in the valley.

Twenty meters away, the group of cadets and agents were waiting for the search to begin. Don could hear Van Hout's voice carry over the parking area as he walked over.

"Two groups, everyone. One in back, one in front. Agent Varitek takes the first group, I'll take the second," Van Hout yelled loudly and the cadets immediately moved.

"We'll let Officer Becker and the dogs go first. If they pick something, both groups will follow. If we get nothing, we'll search the area anyways, grid by grid. Team B is doing the same from the other side of the park. We'll canvass everything twice," Van Hout announced. Don felt his anxiety rising. He had put much hope into this search and he couldn't help but feel helpless and angry that the best clues had gone ignored. If they were searching in the wrong area just because Van Hout didn't believe Kessler, Don would blame himself for not doing enough.

Officer Becker, a short blond man, released his search dog from the back of the blue van. The dog followed his handler eagerly over to the head of the trail.

"We're good and ready to go," Becker announced. "You got something for him to pick up the scent?"

David stepped forward from behind Van Hout and pulled a small pale pink T-shirt from an evidence bag. "It's from the girl. We found it in the hamper. According to the parents, she wore it the day before she disappeared."

"That should do." Becker nodded. He bent down to the dog, letting it home in on Anna Benito's scent.

"Go, find!" Becker gave the command for the dog to started trailing the scent. The present agents and cadets looked on with tense curiosity as the dog circled the parking lot aimlessly, and then returned to his handler. Becker shrugged, interpreting his dog's behaviour for them.

"She hasn't found anything. The girl wasn't here. Let's try another one."

David silently handed him one of Charlie's shirts from a second evidence bag. Becker nodded and let his dog sniff Charlie's shirt. Just like with Anna, the dog trotted around the parking lot for a few minutes, before returning to Becker. Becker slipped the dog a treat, rewarding her. David pulled out the third and last evidence bag.

"Third one should be the charm," he said with forced humour, as he handed Becker the cover of Kessler's pillow, taken from his house.

"Go, find!" Becker commanded his dog. This time, the dog immediately picked up on Kessler's scent. The men could barely follow as the dog proceeded down the trail leading into the park. They headed towards the play area, which was faced by groups of trees on both sides.

But they passed the trees and playing field without stopping. The trees would have provided Kessler with some cover, but he would still have risked spectators from the play area. It was a high-risk area, and not for the first time Don thought that Van Hout was making a massive mistake. He couldn't shake the feeling, even now after they had confirmation that Kessler had been to Acton County Park.

As they passed a basketball court, a high fence came into view, cutting off their way a few yards on, but the dog went on unerringly and the men followed. They approached the fence with no sign of slowing down. When they were directly in front of the fence, the dog disappeared into the knee high grass and suddenly she was gone from sight. Then she appeared several feet downhill on the other sight of the fence.

For a moment, the agents were stunned.

"What the hell?" Becker exclaimed.

"There has to be a hole in the fence!" Don dove down and parted the grass. Someone had cut a square hole into the fence the size of about one square meter. The hole was clear cut, made by a human hand.

"Kessler?" David asked rhetorically, speaking to no one in particular.

Don nodded, he was certain.

December 19, 2005

Acton County Park, Los Angeles County, California

On the other side of the white fence, Don was the first to see it, around five feet down the fence. The white, round stones had been disturbed, but the shape was still recognisable--a 'Z', slashed clean through. It was what he had hoped for and feared at the same time.

"David!" Don called out, waving over his teammate. David came over. He immediately spotted the stones and nodded.

"Kessler. Van Hout and Becker are already up ahead." He motioned at the figures in the distance. "I don't see anything."

Around the two agents was nothing but grasses, shrubs and rocks. Everything had the green of artificial watering. Don paused. The sight of the unnaturally green grass beaming in the California sun had struck something inside his mind. He closed his eyes, allowing the thought to surface. Irrigation systems!

It took the two agents ten minutes to find the nearest access point to the underground irrigation system. There was no doubt that they were in the right place. Kessler's symbol was painted on the side in a rusty red that looked like blood. In a rush, David and Don opened the iron hatch and peered down into the darkness. A familiar odour rose from down below. Fear gripped Don cold.

"Charlie! Charlie, are you all right!" Don started climbing down on the rungs cemented into the wall of the shaft. He was in a hurry and didn't notice the slick wetness under his hands or the foul smell that grew more intense as he stepped further down.

"Charlie! Anna!" Don wasn't even aware that he was calling out frantically while he was climbing down the shaft. Once his feet hit the water, he immediately set into motion, not waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He started to search in the darkness, continuing to call out for Anna and his missing brother. His heart was racing, but he took no notice. Somewhere he could hear David yelling his name, but he ignored him, stumbling forwards as his sight started to improve and shadowed forms sharpened. Between dead leaves and broken twigs was a huddled human shape. It was bending over forwards and Don could only see the back and one awkwardly twisted arm. The body was too large to belong to a child. Suddenly a flashlight came on from behind. David.

"It's not him," David said calmly. A split second later David stood at his side, doing what Don hadn't dared to. "It's Ortiz, the bastard killed Rita Ortiz. He didn't even take her badge; it's still here." Don had never heard David so angry. He felt burned out; the anticipation, the fear and tension had been for nothing. The hope that had fuelled him had been shattered once again. He had been so sure. Everything had fit. This was the well Kessler had been talking about. Don felt foolish for having trusted Kessler to lead them into the right direction.

"Looks like her throat was slashed, at least from what I can tell," David commented. "There's a lot of blood on her clothes. I'll call Sabello and Van Hout. There's no reception down here." David waded over to the metal ladder.

oOo

The dead body of Rita Ortiz had been carried to the surface and was waiting for the coroner for transport back to the morgue. Van Hout had diverted a group of cadets from combing the park to searching the rest of the underground irrigation system, but Don knew they weren't going to find any other bodies. He stood at the side as Dr. Sabello and took a closer look at the body in daylight. David was looking over Sabello's shoulder, listening intently to the pathologist.

"You were right, agent. Her throat has been slit by someone with experience. You can't just bend someone's neck back and slit it; it's very hard to sever the carotid artery in this position. However, if you tilt the head forwards, it's much easier. Just one swift cut." Sabello demonstrated the moment. "She was still alive when her throat was cut. You can see the blood on her shirt."

The dirty water had washed some of the blood out, but the rust-coloured stains from the collar down the chest suggested she had bleed heavily.

"Her neck is broken as well," Sabello continued. "I found something in her pocket what might interest you." Sabello handed David a zip-lock plastic bag, wet on the outside.

"I found it like that in her pocket," Sabello commented when David looked at him in question.

David carefully opened the bag and poured the content into his hand. It contained a white napkin wrapped around a large skeleton key.

"It looks old," Sabello commented, still looking before he turned back to the body of Rita Ortiz.

"What do you think? Kessler left it for us to find. It could fit all sorts of things. Some kind of trunk, a wardrobe, maybe on old door." David shrugged.

"There wasn't anything in his house that would fit," Don replied. He was suddenly tired, spent from the disappointment of yet another dead lead. "What I don't understand is why? Why did he kill Ortiz? He could have baited us, played with us. She was an agent, but he never bragged about her, nothing! I just don't understand it." Don's thoughts were in a jumble. He had believed to have had some understanding of the workings of Kessler's mind, he had thought he knew the rules of the killer's game, only to figure out he hadn't even known all the players involved. They should have investigated Rita Ortiz's disappearance more seriously; she could have had a chance, maybe. There had been no signs of foul play, but they could have saved a live if they had tried. Rita Ortiz was someone's daughter or sister or mother and people would grieve for her. Don felt a wave of guilt because he was glad that it was her, dead in the underground tunnel and not Charlie.

oOo

Terry's eyes were itching and the lines were starting to blur in front of her. She had increased the size of the font several times, but her eyes were simply exhausted and the pain from the cuts in her neck and hand was making her uncomfortable. She didn't have much to show for six hours of work. The 127 cases from her first search had yielded but two interesting cases. And the parallels were tangible at best. A double homicide, in the spring of 2004, March 20.

Gina Rogers, 54, and Tom Rogers, 67, were found stabbed and strangled in their Venice home. There was no robbery and no rape. Terry read what the lead detective on the case had entered into the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Their house hadn't been broken into. The couple had let the killer into their home. The killer had most likely brought the fatal knife with him, but he had strangled Gina Rogers with her husband's belt after having killed him. The kill had clearly started out as planned. The killer had brought the murder weapon with the intent to murder at least one of the couple, but he had become disorganized at some point, grabbing a weapon of opportunity to kill the wife. Maybe she had not been a target and her presence had surprised the killer, forcing him to improvise.

What had alerted Terry to the case were the slash marks in the husband's chest. The killer had obviously abandoned his work, but the lead detective had recognized that the superficial slashes were not part of the stab wounds, but of an attempt to carve a pattern into the victim's chest. The patter resembled a 'Z'. It wasn't slashed through, like the symbol Kessler had drawn near the graves of his victims, but the resemblance was there. Tom Rogers fell into the right age range of Kessler's victims, although he had been stabbed twenty-three times instead of having his throat slit and his neck broken.

There were enough differences between the double homicides and Kessler's known MO for it not to show up during Charlie's initial search. But Terry had set out to do just that. She was trying to find those one of the cases that Charlie might have missed. A profile wasn't set in stone and while MO's changed, signatures didn't. Kessler's signature seemed to be the use of the slashed Z, whatever it might have originally meant to him. Initially, Terry and Don had interpreted it to be a symbol for the letters 'A' and 'N', turned around, a kind of symbolist riddle it turned out Kessler liked. When they found Anna Benito missing, Terry thought her assumption confirmed, but something had bothered her about it. When events had accelerated rapidly Kessler's botched arrest and the fruitless search for the missing girl and Charlie, complicated considerations had slipped to the back of her mind for a few days. Now she was back in the office. Terry turned away from the computer and switched off the monitor. The Rogers' double murder had made the list for the moment. Terry reached for the phone and dialled the contact listed for the case investigator.

TBC


	18. December 19, 2005 Part 4

_December 19, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

The phone call had been disappointing. The lead detective, Detective Rube, had died of a heart attack six months earlier and Detective Farrar, his partner during spring 2004, had transferred out in the summer of 2004. Where she had transferred to, the detective on the other end of the line didn't know. Terry thanked him and hung up. She'd have to file a request for the case files of the double homicide, but she wouldn't get the file before tomorrow. Terry leaned back, stretching very carefully not to tear her stitches. Her muscles were stiff from being hunched in front of the computers all morning and well into the afternoon.

Terry sighed. She was trying hard not to lose hope. She couldn't imagine how it had to be for Don as they stumbled across puzzle pieces that refused to fit together and some that might not even belong to the puzzle at all.

Terry had set herself one task to work on while she was stuck at a desk. She was going to find out who Adam Kessler really was.

Terry filled her cup with coffee for the fourth time and walked over into the empty briefing room. She stopped in front of the movable white board Charlie had used to outline the case. Terry took a black erasable marker that had been left on the briefing table and flipped the board to its blank site.

Terry didn't know where to start; she didn't know how Kessler had gotten started. Some behaviourists believed that abuse and violence was perpetuated from generation to generation. Terry was sure that Kessler had been emotionally abused as a child, probably by his father, who in turn might have been abused by his father. But they only knew about Kessler. Terry wrote his name on the middle of the board and drew columns on the bottom third of the board. The first, she labelled 'victims' and she entered the names of the six male victims, sorted by dates of their murders. Although Kessler had not made a confession and they had not been able to obtain clinching physical evidence, they had found the highly incriminating journal in his hidden room. The handwritten journals documented in words and picture the crimes from their planning to the disposal of evidence afterwards. There hadn't been any other journals, which at first led Terry to believe that Kessler had only intended to kill those six men. Or he had wanted them to believe just that. Terry could not yet say if the killings had a deeper meaning for Kessler, or if the number six had a special significance. All she had were assumptions and possibilities.

Terry drew a line under the names of the six men and wrote down Anna's and Charlie's names. Something didn't jive.

Kessler had held his murder victims prisoner for several days before killing them. Then, after committing serial murders for over thirty years, Kessler had stepped down from murder to kidnapping much younger victims for longer periods of time. A deceleration in violence was very unusual. Normally over time, killers took more victims and killed them more savagely. Kessler's progression might have been hindered by his physical infirmity.

But as a rule, as a killer became disorganized, he'd spend less time with a victim and spend more time with the things that were important to him. Kessler descent into delusions, brought on by terminal cancer, was a classic case of that disorganisation, physically as well as mentally. Maybe it had been something about kidnapping and having complete control over his victims all along. They had found the windowless room, and Terry had seen the pictures. Kessler had bound his victims to the radiator in the dark and left them there for days. He had probably enjoyed their fear; maybe it had aroused him sexually. Then he had killed them quickly without torture. Kessler's crimes weren't exceedingly violent; there was no evidence of overkill. The pattern had repeated itself in six cases, in the choice of victim, the choice of weapon and the signature. These six victims were part of a pattern.

Terry went back to the white board and drew another column. She erased Anna's and Charlie's names from the first column and entered them in the second column.

She was just about to get another cup of coffee when her cell phone started to vibrate in the pocket of her slacks. It was Don, bearing bad news. Although the teams and dogs were still searching, there was little hope that Charlie and Anna had ever been at Acton County Park. The body of Rita Ortiz had been found and it looked like Kessler had killed her. Don had called from the parking lot. He and David were going to drive back to LA soon.

Terry felt sorry for Don, but she had not had much hope for Charlie and the missing girl any more. Although she hadn't figured out Kessler's motivation yet, she didn't think he had wanted to kill them. Even if he had just locked them up in a second hide-out of his, the lack of water would have killed them by now.

The difference between the victims Kessler had taken was a riddle that seemed impossible to crack. Kessler had killed older men, maybe stand-ins for an abusive father who had locked him up in the dark as a child. The common pattern of kidnapping and murder linked the six cases. The kidnapping of Anna and Charlie was about something else. They belonged to a separate pattern. Terry hesitated, but then she entered Rita Ortiz into the same column as Anna and Charlie. She didn't know the parameters of the new pattern yet, but if she simply went chronologically, Rita Ortiz was part of the second pattern. Her age and gender supported that assumption.

There was a lot to indicate that the old men were father figures and Kessler had killed stand-ins for his father. According to everything she knew, one reasonable assumption was that, despite their different ages, Charlie and Anna represented children to Kessler. He did refer to them as Hansel and Gretel. Terry was fairly convinced that Kessler hadn't wanted to murder them. Maybe he had wanted to protect them from the abusive man in his life. She wasn't sure how Rita Ortiz fit into this theory, but it fit with something she had read before in connection with the case.

The police report from Reno had mentioned some sort of family tragedy: a suicide of an unfit mother, one daughter dying at toddler age and two sons living with the father. Nothing outright said abuse, but the story had popped up when they had investigated cases connected with Kessler's signature.

The divorce records weren't in the FBI system because divorces were handled by the Family Court. Any matters regarding custody proceedings would be archived there, unless Social Services had been involved in the case. The Reno office might still have records, if they hadn't been destroyed or lost in the last thirty-five years. It happened, and ill-will wasn't always involved. A search of police records would reveal if the death of the little girl had ever invited the suspicions of local law enforcement.

Terry picked up the phone for the second time that day.

_December 19, 2005_

_Parking Garage_

_FBI Fiel Office, Los Angeles_

Don and David had spent the drive back to the city in silence. There were no fitting words to say. The search still continued, through the park and along the lake, but Don's hopes were crushed. The 140-mile radius wasn't covered by a long shot, but their time window was closing as they neared the end of the fourth day since Charlie's disappearance. Finding Rita Ortiz dead had been the last straw. Don had wanted to believe that Kessler had only kidnapped Charlie and Anna and that they were alive somewhere. But when he had seen the body of a federal agent, trashed away in a watering tunnel, he had known that his brother was dead.

When he and David climbed out of the car in the FBI garage, Don was spent, physically and emotionally. He couldn't go inside and walk down to the ME's office. Dr. Sabello had called to tell them he had preliminary findings for them. Don just couldn't do it; his mind wouldn't allow it and his body wouldn't obey.

"David, I can't..." he simply said, standing frozen next to the car. He knew what he was supposed to do, but it was impossible.

"Man, Don. Maybe you should take the rest of the day off, go home for a few hours. I'll call you us soon as we know anything new." David would have loved to do more for Don, but right now there wasn't anything he could do.

Don nodded slowly. "I'll be back tomorrow morning. I just...just need some sleep." He couldn't recall the last time he had woken up and not felt tired. He felt so very tired. Walking back to the car was mechanical. His legs were doing their work, and he was working on autopilot as he unlocked the door and got behind the wheel.

_December 19, 2005_

_Office of the Mecical Examiner_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

Dr. Sabello had already finished with the autopsy when David arrived in the ME's office a little after six in the evening.

"I'm not done yet with the report, Agent Sinclair," Dr. Sabello said when David came in the door.

"That's not what I'm here for. The report can wait. Did Kessler kill her?" David rushed the question. He hadn't wanted to show it in front of Don, but the murder of Rita Ortiz had raised doubts in him.

"I can't give you a hundred-percent answer, but it's highly likely. I confirmed my earlier findings. The cause of death was exsanguination from a severed carotid artery. The depths and directionality of the cut matches Kessler's earlier victims. From the shape and size of the blood spatter on her blouse, she was upright but leaning forwards when her neck was cut. There is relativity less blood than you'd expect on her clothes and a good amount of it is on her upper legs. If I had to guess, I'd say she was crouched on her lower legs with her upper body bent forwards when she died. From that position, I can't tell you much about the height of the killer," Sabello noted.

"What about the murder weapon?" David asked.

"A hunting knife maybe. But whatever was used, the weapon is very similar to the one used on Kessler's other victims. If the knife was used before, there is a slight chance of transfer in the wound. I sent samples to the lab, but don't get your hopes up. Anything could have contaminated the wound down in the tunnel. CSU took samples of everything down there, so hopefully we'll be able to sort out what doesn't belong, but that'll take day if not weeks." Sabello shrugged.

"Time is the one thing we do not have." David sighed. He wished they had the time and resources to investigate the homicide of a member of their office top to bottom, but at the moment they were stretched pretty thin. Her disappearance had never received the amount of attention it should have. There had been no indication of foul play and an adult in their right mind was allowed to disappear.

"One more thing, doctor. Do you have the time of death yet?"

"This is where matters get complicated. You see, decomposition of her outer tissues is more advanced than on the inner organs. I found no cell damage that would indicate ice crystals forming during freezing, but the body was stored somewhere cold enough to delay putrefaction. She could have been killed as long as ten days ago, but she wasn't out in that tunnel more than forty-eight hours."

David didn't believe his ears. Kessler had been in federal hold-up forty-eight hours ago. "Are you absolutely sure she hasn't been in the tunnel longer than that?"

"There aren't any certainties in determining time of death. I'm just giving you my preliminary estimate. After I take a look at the recent weather data for the area, I will be able to give you a better estimate. Dr. Owens from the entomology lab is trying to establish a time line now, but the body was very well shielded from insects. I hardly found any insect activity. He might be able to tell you more."

"I hope so. Because, forty-eight hours ago, Kessler was already in custody." David shook his head. Kessler was guilty, there was no doubt in his mind; everything had been there: the pictures, the blood, the sawdust. They couldn't have made a mistake with Kessler. If Kessler turned out to be the wrong man, if he was actually innocent, the implications were unthinkable. They had wasted days and hundreds of man-hours already on digging up every inch of Kessler's property and trying to find some trace of his past.

"Can you call me with the results?"

"You'll hear about it as soon as I know," Sabello promised.

_December 19, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

The third person Terry had been connected to at the Reno family services was finally willing to listen to her inquiry.

"Records from the 60s? Well, in theory yes, but they are stored at the county records office, not in our building, so someone from the office will have to go over there and check. Are you sure this was one of our cases?" Terry had already forgotten the name belonging to the high-pitched female voice on the other end of the line.

"No, Agent Lake with the Los Angeles Field Office. I'm investigating a suicide. The victim's name was Louisa Lawrence. I'm looking for records on any of her three children: Emily Lawrence, Gerald Lawrence and Thomas Lawrence," Terry explained.

"What year again was the case you are looking for?"

Terry sighed silently. "I don't know exactly. Maybe 1961. I need to know if there are any records about these children at all."

"Do you have a court order?" The dreaded two words Terry had been waiting for.

"I'm afraid I don't." She could threaten to go to a judge, but she had the feeling that the woman on the other end of the line didn't much care about the confidentiality of forty-year-old records. She was more concerned about having to search for them.

Terry knew she was in the right trail, but everywhere she turned, she was running into walls while time was running out. She had read all she had been able to find on the case from the files that were available to her from the Reno detectives and the FBI database. Family Services wouldn't make their files available to her without a court order, if there were any files in the first place, but there had to be public records about the case as well. Newspapers tended to latch onto family tragedies like these; maybe the Lawrence suicide had made the news in a local Reno paper. It was a possibility and Terry was willing to check out every lead she had.

Terry called the directory service for the number of the press association.

_Apartment of Rita Ortiz_

_Venice, California_

Rita Ortiz had lived on the third floor of a rather non-descript six-story white apartment building in Venice. The corridors were quiet in the early evening when David unlocked the door.

Immediately he was struck by how cold it was inside the three-room apartment. The AC was turned up all the way and all blinds were closed, leaving the apartment in darkness. David switched on the lights in the apartment hallway. The illuminated hallway was a gruesome sight. The beige carpet was stained with tell-tale red brown spots. It was only a thin trail, but David guessed it was blood. It led from the room at the end of the hallway to the room at the right side of the front door. Just to be safe, David unholstered his weapon. Now that he was no longer certain that Kessler was the man they were looking for, it was possible that Rita's killer was still on the loose.

David found no one in the apartment. The biggest amount of blood was in the living room. An irregular spot had seeped into the carpet in front of the couch and blood had spattered onto the couch itself. The blood trail led to the bathroom. One towel with bloodstains was one the floor. David had seen enough; he called CSU.

After he had made the call, he went back into the kitchen. He had seen a stack of letters on the kitchen table; presumably Rita Ortiz had brought in the mail the last time she had come home. Everything indicated that the apartment was where the murder had taken place, or at least a violent struggle. Rita Ortiz had vanished after questioning a witness, but she had returned home that day. David wanted to see whether she had brought up the mail that evening. It would confirm his theory.

The stack of mail on the table comprised mail from several days. David read the postmark and stared. December 17. Rita Ortiz had been dead by the time the letter arrived in her mailbox. She couldn't have brought it up into her apartment and neither could have Kessler. Everything about Rita's murder was telling them that Kessler was innocent, but the MO was an exact copy of the serial murders. Kessler loved those kinds of games.

David turned the envelope postmarked December 17 around to check for a return address. He froze. No address was given, just a name--Adam Kessler.

With gloved hand, David opened the envelope. It contained a single page, filled with numbers. A code, a riddle, or just a prank. Charlie's help would come in handy at the moment, but he was the one they were trying to find. Maybe Larry or Amita could help them out; they certainly would want to try.

_December 19, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

The Nevada Press Association had given Terry the names of the newspapers and journals published in the Reno area during 1961. Terry started with the easy ones first. All the papers still in print had a website and two of them had a searchable archive of past articles.

For the _Reno Weekly Journal_, the web archive only listed published articles written after 1989, but Terry did a search anyways. A few Lawrence's popped up, but none seemed related. She took notes and moved on to the next journal, _New Family Life_, a mostly Nevada based monthly based publication. Like from the other journal, the archive was only articles written in the past two decades, but there was an index listing for every issue the journal had publish since its first in June 1958.

Terry search through the articles, but as she had expected, nothing popped up that seemed related to her case. She clicked on the index listing and started reading starting with the 1958 issue.

By the 1972 issue Terry got up to take a Vicodin. She decided to quit the coffee for now, as she could already feel the headache brew from too much caffeine and too little food. She went back to the listing and worked her way through the indices of 1973 to 1988. In thirty years of _New Family Life_, the same themes had come up over and over again--a mix of parenting advice, book reviews, readers' stories and reports about events in the Southwest United States.

Terry carefully stretched and walked over to the vending machine for a protein bar. She hardly felt the Vicodin she had taken earlier. Her stitches hurt and she was growing tired. It was her first day back at work and she hadn't taken a break since coming in that morning.

Terry had just peeled back the wrapper of her peanut butter chocolate chip bar when her cell phone vibrated against her hip for the second time that day. Expecting more news from David, Terry picked up the phone and answered.

"Yes?"

"Is this Agent Lake with the FBI?" An elderly female voice asked on the other end of the line.

"Yes, what's your name, ma'am? Terry asked and pulled out her pen to take down the woman's name.

"I worked the Lawrence case back in the day. It was a real tragedy. We grew up in the same neighbourhood. Louisa was a sweet young woman and none of us could believe that she could have killed herself. She was making so much progress."

"You knew Louisa Lawrence and her children?" Terry asked again, trying to figure out if she was dealing with a prank phone call.

"I knew her," the woman affirmed. "It was in my first week when they handed me her case folder. Louisa wasn't a bad mother, but she needed help--professional help--but in the 50ties, people weren't trained to recognise the signs, not even most doctors. I had no idea what was wrong back then. I thought she was neglecting her children." The woman sounded sad, but she was talking fast, as if she had waited a long time to tell this story. Terry said nothing and waited for the caller to continue.

"I recall that day exactly. It was a Wednesday in the first week of September, 1957. It was an extremely hot day and the Lawrence home was the third on my list that day. The family doctor had called us because he suspected abuse. I confirmed his suspicions. Louisa was a very young mother, but she wasn't drunk when I came. Her children were properly dressed and there was food in the house; she was doing all right." The woman sounded reluctant.

Terry knew Louisa had later lost custody of her children. "Was there anything that made you suspect otherwise?"

"Nothing I can put my finger on." The answer came after a pause. Terry didn't believe it but didn't pry for fear the woman would hang up.

"Louisa's husband called the police a few months later, just weeks after Emily died. He told the officers that she tried to drown Tommy while they were picnicking at a lake. There were no criminal charges, since the police couldn't prove anything and none of the other people at the lake had seen or heard anything. But Louisa went into a hospital somewhere in California and the children stayed with Carl. He filed for divorce immediately. He later moved away from the neighbourhood after the paperwork went through. He didn't have much choice. He couldn't show his face without the people talking about him. Half the people were thinking that Louisa was a killer and the other half were thinking that he had shipped off his poor sick wife to an institution. Carl moved to Oregon, died there a few years later. They say he drank himself to death. It was a tragedy." The woman went silent and Terry already waited for the tell-tale click telling her that she had hung up, but the woman stayed on the line.

"Is there something else you want to tell me?" Terry finally asked.

"I never believed Louisa's death was a suicide. I even went to the police, but nobody would believe me. I tried getting the papers interested in her story, but nobody wants to write about a suicide."

TBC


	19. December 19, 2005 Part 5

_December 19, 2005_

_Los Angeles_

Aqua's _Barbie Girl_ was blaring from the radio when Don drove up the ramp to the freeway. His hands were still trembling and he had to force himself to stay focused on the road. He had barely gotten out of the garage without hitting another car. For minutes, he had just sat in his car, hands clutched around the wheel, unable to do more than just breathe. It had seemed like hours had passed when he had finally been able to gather his thoughts.

He was falling apart, crushed under the pressure. He needed to get out.

The music was on loud but it didn't serve its purpose, Don could still hear the reproach in his thought, following him every mile from the office. He should have stayed at work. One of his agents was dead and it was his fault. He should be the one giving her father the bad news, but he hadn't even cared who took on the unloved task. David might have made the call to DeWinter. Don should call, but he didn't want to disturb the man when he was grieving for his daughter. He would receive Don's report anyways. No matter how he turned it, he was to blame, not by commission, but omission was just as damning.

His ringing cell phone distracted him.

Don reached to answer. "Hello."

"Don, it's David, there has been a development. Rita has been dead for only two days. Kessler had been in hold-up by then, so he couldn't have killed her. There simply is no way."

"That's not possible. Sabello must be wrong!" Every hope he had, it crumbled right in front of his eyes. "What about freezing-?

Loud honking jerked Don's attention back to the street. He slammed on the breaks directly, but it was too late. Metal screeched and glass crunched. The air bag ballooned as he was thrown towards the dashboard, catching him before the impact. Cars were honking all around. Don pulled himself back up and tried to wrestle free of the seat belt. He had forgotten about traffic. Between being caught up on the case and being on the phone with David, he had not noticed that traffic had crawled to a hold on the lane in front of him. Flexing his stinging wrist, Don stepped out of the car. A man, he presumed the driver of the car he had crashed into, was already standing in front of his car, anger on his face. But when he spotted Don, the young man's face converted to an expression of concern.

"You all right?" The other driver sounded like a teenager. He couldn't be older than seventeen.

"I'm fine. Listen, I'm sorry I crashed into you. I didn't pay attention, it's my fault. I'm going to contact my insurance first thing tomorrow." Don was operating on autopilot; going though the motions while his mind was blank.

"Well, shouldn't we call the police?" The young man asked.

"Oh, you are right." Don had forgotten about that. He moved to reach for his cell, not realizing he had dropped it in the car.

"Whoa!" The teen suddenly backed up with raised hands. "We don't have to call the cops. Let's just forget this ever happen."

"What?" Don was confused than he realized the other man had thought he was going for his gun. "No. I'm with the FBI."

The young man cast a doubting look. "No kidding, right?

"Really. I'm with the LA field office. I'm going to call the police now so we can get this taken care of."

December 19, 2005

CalSci University, Los Angeles

David hadn't been prepared for the reaction of the CalSci students to recent events when he came to the campus to visit Amita and Larry to ask for their help in Kessler's most recent riddle. On buildings, posting boards and pillars, Charlie was staring at him from black and white missing person's flyers. It was most likely a fruitless effort, but it showed how popular Charlie was with students and staff of the university.

It was almost nine in the evening, but Larry and Amita were eating in subdued silence when David arrived.

Larry quickly moved to declutter a chair, to make room for David to sit, but there was a dark air hanging over the room as Larry hardly said a word and Amita only nodded as David finally took a seat. Their silence made David feel uncomfortable. He hadn't expected a warm reception, but they had worked together in the past, and they had worked well together.

"Thanks for waiting so long for me. Uh, I brought the letter we found at the scene. It's just a bunch of numbers to me, but I was hoping you could tell me more about it." David pulled out a photocopy of the original letter Rita Ortiz had received on December 18.

Larry took the piece of paper, glanced at it and handed it over to Amita. Amita got up and transcribed the letter onto the board. She didn't put down the piece of chalk when she finished put immediately started singling out patterns.

"It's too short to analyze. It's most likely the numbers in this code stands for words and their letters in a predetermined text. He basically pieces together a message from another text. Basically, you need the text that goes with the code," Amita explained.

"Right, we had that before. Railway nutcase," David said and nodded. "Well, this guy is a fairytale nut. The only books we found at his place were fairytale books, several of them. I doubt he reads anything else, not even a newspaper."

"What are his favorites?" Larry spoke for the first time since David's arrival.

"He talks about a princess in a well, a witch and the forest." David tried to sum up Kessler's seemingly delusional ramblings. "I can't think of any other right now that he's mentioned; he keeps repeating himself. None of us is getting anywhere with him." David hadn't meant to vent his frustrations, but after days of dead-ends, he was starting to lose hope.

"I'll get on it once you bring the books," Amita spoke softly.

"I'm sorry. I should have brought the books with me. I wasn't thinking." David felt the need to apologize. On his end of the investigation, it was easy to forget the families and the friends who were suffering with worry. Don was holding up a brave front; he didn't want the other agents to see what he was going through. Amita and Larry weren't making on effort to shield their feelings. They were offering their help, but David could see that their hopes had worn thin with the passing days. They had stopped believing in Charlie's safe return. Maybe Don had stopped believing as well.

"I doubt either of us will go home tonight; we'll be waiting." Amita handed David back the letter.

"I got copies. Keep it. I'll be back as soon as I can. Everyone is still on this but it's been a long run. An agent was found murdered today. That's always difficult."

"We saw it on the news. We'll be waiting." Amita's face showed a shadow of her usual open smile.

_December 19, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

There was a click and the line went dead. For a moment, Terry stared at her mobile phone, and then she dialed the number of her last caller. She only needed to ring once before the woman answered.

"You shouldn't call back. I have told you everything I know."

"I think there is a lot more that you know. I think you can help me. That's why you called."

"I want to help. But I made mistakes. You see I was there when Louisa needed help and I didn't do anything. That's why I called you now, but that was I mistake, I'm too old to get dragged into this. For thirty years, I tried to help people…"

"You are doing the right thing by talking to me. You are with Child Protective Services?"

"It wasn't called that when I started out in 1957, but that's not important. I don't want any trouble. I'm an old woman now. I'm finally retiring at the end of the year. I went to Louisa's house on my first day and I never stopped thinking about her." The weight of guilt had been weighing down heavily on the anonymous woman for many years before she had finally picked up the phone.

Terry realized how old the woman had to be if she had known Louisa Lawrence as a young mother.

"What year were you born?"

"1939, just before the war started overseas. I'm not going to give you my name or any more details so you can…"

"Don't hang up." If she lost her now, the woman wouldn't trust her again. "I want to meet you. Talk to you in person." Terry waited for an answer, but there was only silence on the other end of the phone.

Finally there was whoosh of air. "Nobody can know that I'm talking to you."

"Nobody has to know. You know what a confidential informant is? Nobody is going to know your name." Terry needed her informant's trust to get the full story.

"That sounds all right. I know this place in LA, but I'm not sure if it's still there. I haven't been there in years." The woman didn't seem to have planned this outcome of their conversation.

"We can meet in a restaurant or a bar where there are many people around." Terry wasn't sure why the woman was so paranoid. She hadn't admitted to anything criminal, but Terry was determined to gain her trust.

"Alice's Beach Café. I can meet you there."

Terry would look up the address and check out the location ahead of time. "Agreed. At what time do you want to meet?"

"I'll meet you tomorrow morning, 5.30 a.m." With a click, the connection was severed.

The old woman sounded determined and Terry started to wonder whether maybe this had been the plan all along. She was going to meet her informant, but she was going to be careful.

Terry wanted to know who her informant was before she met with her. Assuming the woman had told her the truth and she had really been born in 1939, she was now sixty-five years old. As a government employee for the state of Nevada, she was in the system including her fingerprints. Terry was going to find her.

_December 19, 2005_

_Eppes' Family Home, Los Angeles_

The car had to be towed and Don took a cab home. It was ten minutes to midnight when he opened the front door to the family home. The light in the living room was still on. Years ago, his father had stopped waiting for him to come home. In his job, he worked late often, sometimes all-night.

Don tossed his jacket over a chair and walked into the living room. His father was sitting on the couch, a book abandoned next to him. The TV was on, but turned to mute. It was starting to become a familiar picture and Don felt powerless to help. Alan only turned to look at him when he came in; the reproach was in his eyes. He didn't need to say anything.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I should have called to say did it was getting late. But I had some car trouble on the way home and I had to take a cab. The car had to be towed." Don didn't know what to say. He didn't want his father to worry about his lack of attention in traffic. Don knew the accident could have been much more serious.

"I heard on TV what happened. One of your agents was found dead. You had more than car trouble today." Alan got up and walked into the kitchen. Don followed him.

"It's true. But I…I excused myself from the investigation. Only for today. I needed a few hours of space." Don leaned against the fridge. The time had escaped down the drain with the car crash on the freeway.

Alan didn't ask his son where he had been. He opened the oven instead. "Stan's wife brought some casserole. I put the rest in the oven. It might still be good."

Don ignored him. "I'm not hungry. Besides, it's all dried up now. You shouldn't have stayed up that late."

Alan turned off the oven and put the casserole on the side, ignoring him. Alan walked back into the living room, retaking his seat on the couch.

Don perched on the coffee table, not sure himself what he was waiting for. "I'm sorry. I can't say more than that. I wish I had called, but I was in the field all day and when an agent is killed, it falls down on all of us. It comes down on me, because I neglected her case." Don hadn't meant to say that.

His father stared at him.

"Are they saying that you neglected another case because you were looking for your brother?" His father's voice was dangerously calm.

"No one has said as much, but this agent, she disappeared a few days ago and the investigation dragged, because…"

"Because you put your priorities elsewhere," his father finished for him.

"Yes. The agent who was killed is the daughter of an assistant director with the FBI. There is going to be an investigation. They are going to want to know who dropped the ball." Don hung his head.

"Could you have found her in time?"

Don shook his head. "She knew the risks. She knew this could happen. Charlie didn't. I should never have dragged him into the FBI. He had no idea of what is out there. "

Alan didn't reply.

TBC


	20. December 20, 2005 Part 1

_December 20, 2005_

_Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles_

It was well before office hours when Don pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. At the early hour the lot was still fairly empty; visiting hours hadn't begun yet. He climbed out of the car and stepped out into the rain, which had continued all through the night. Charlie was running out of time, if Kessler was even telling the truth.

Don's head hurt from lack of sleep and too much caffeine as he walked into the entrance hall. He longed for another cup of coffee, the days of hardly any sleep coming back at him with vengeance. But he knew that more coffee would only make his headache worse.

He walked up to the reception desk and showed his badge.

"Good morning. I'm Agent Eppes with the FBI. I'm here about a patient. His name is Adam Kessler," Don said.

The woman behind the desk barely looked at his badge.

"Kessler." She typed on her keyboard. "Yes, he was admitted on the 17th. Oncology ward. You need his room number?" She looked up.

"Yes." Don wasted no time. Kessler was his last chance of finding Charlie in time.

"It's room 545. Have a nice day."

oOo

A junior agent was posted in front of Kessler's room. He was a federal prisoner and the only reason he wasn't in a prison infirmary was because adequate treatment couldn't be assured given his advanced condition.

Kendrick, the junior agent, got up when Don approached. Don nodded, and then walked up to him.

"Kendrick, how long have you been sitting here?" Don asked casually.

"Since 5 p.m. yesterday, sir."

"Go get a cup of coffee. I'll take it from here," Don said firmly. Kendrick frowned, then agreed.

"If you say so, sir. I'll be back in 15."

"Take 30." Don dreaded what he was about to do. Kessler wasn't going to give up the truth easily.

Don opened the door. Kessler had been put into a private room, isolated from the other patients. One of his hands was cuffed to the bed rail.

"Agent Eppes, what a joy to see you again! Have you received my gift?" Kessler's dark eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow. He had lost weight since Don had last seen him.

"I got your package all right. We figured out your riddle. We know who your princess is. She's a six-year-old girl. Anna Benito. You used Charlie to kidnap her." Don's fury had no effect on Kessler; he looked at Don warmly, like he was a welcome visitor at his hospital bed.

"But you counted on all this. That's why you left the journals at your house. You knew we'd find out who the girl was. But we found someone else. Rita Ortiz. Why did you kill her?" Don was sure Kessler would be compelled take credit for her murder.

"She was wicked and false. The miller's daughter, but she was a witch underneath." A grin filled Kessler's emaciated face.

"You admit that you killed her? We know that's not true. Who are you working with?"

"The witch walked out into the woods and she was lost," Kessler repeated what he had told Don and the other investigators many times before.

Don pulled up a chair, dragging it as close to the patient's bed as possible.

"I also have a story to tell you." He had to fight to stay calm, while he was almost shaking with anger at the man who had the answers to finding his brother. "A man had a son. When he was angry, he sent his son away into to forest, where to son was all alone. He couldn't find his way back home. And then a few hours later, it got cold and dark. Very dark."

"The king is dead!" Kessler hissed and Don knew he had struck a nerve. Terry's profile had been right on the mark.

"There was a deep well in the forest. The king trapped you in the well all alone in the dark. You screamed for help but nobody came. Your father left you down in that hole as long as he wanted. You were hungry, you were thirsty, you screamed for him to let you out, but he didn't care. You were alone." Don leaned into Kessler's personal space, enjoying the killer's discomfort.

Kessler stared at him with piercing eyes and for a moment his gaze wavered, but then he was back in control, his face livid. "He's dead."

"Did you kill him when he tried to trap you?" Don had laid the way for Kessler to make his confession. He could tell his story and it would never leave the room.

"He's dead." It was all Kessler would say. He folded his bone-thin arms over his chest and refused to meet Don's gaze again.

_December 20, 2005_

_Alice's Beach Café, Venice_

At this hour, the beach was fairly deserted. Terry had parked in a lot half a mile away and had walked the rest. She wasn't sure the woman was going to show up at all. After a night of sleep, she too had started to doubt the wisdom of trusting an anonymous voice on the phone.

It rained as she walked down the path to the beach. Gray waves were rolling onto the shore and the sky was just a lighter tone of the water. It was another cold, wet winter day that made her miss the summer and dread what Charlie and Anna had to be going through, if they were still alive, trapped somewhere.

Erica Logan, the elderly woman working for CPS, stood in the shadow of the small blue building that had once housed the beach café. She looked a lot smaller, frailer, than Terry had imagined. The collar of her black coat was pulled up and she was clutching a black bag with both hands. She seemed to relax when she spotted Terry.

"Agent Lake, I was afraid you wouldn't come. I apologize for putting you through so much trouble, but I want to help." Erica pulled a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I appreciate it. What can you tell me?" Terry asked. The case wouldn't come to trial in all likelihood, so she didn't have to worry about admissibility. No defense attorney would let illegally gained record be entered into evidence.

"I made copies of the records on the two boys you asked me about. It's sketchy at best, but you have resources I don't have." Erica Logan handed Terry the bag.

"Take it. Just keep me out of it." Abruptly she turned and left. Terry slowly walked back to her car, holding the bag firmly. She didn't bother driving off before she started reading. She wanted to know what she had before she took this to the office. If it was nothing worthwhile, nobody needed to know. The cotton bag contained a manila folder about twenty sheets thick. Terry flipped it open.

The first page was a copy of a birth certificate. Gerald Lawrence, born March 1, 1950 in Reno, Nevada. Son of Louisa Lawrence and Carl Lawrence. Another birth certificate, Thomas Lawrence, born August 14, 1952 to same parents. The third birth certificate was for Emily Lawrence born February 12, 1956. Her death certificate confirmed her date of death on April 7, 1958. Cause of death was listed as drowning.

Further down the file was a short report typed in tiny print by a Dr. Tyler of 78 Tanzer Street, six months before Emily's death. Dated August 4, 1957, it stated that Emily Lawrence had been treated for exposure to the cold and a broken arm. Exposure in August in Nevada? Terry didn't believe it. The girl had been brought in by a woman named Charlotte Houser. Dr. Tyler commented in the final sentence that the girl's clothes smelled of alcohol.

Terry flipped ahead, looking for a report on the girl's death. She hoped for an autopsy report since the girl had died under suspicious circumstances, according to the police report investigating the suicide of Louisa Lawrence. The death of her daughter was one of the many things that had swayed the police to believe that she had indeed killed herself.

Next in the file were the court documents of divorce of Louisa and Carl Lawrence. Terry know that Louisa had been divorced and had lost custody of the children, but she didn't know why. Carl had initially filed for divorce, citing the drinking of his wife as the reason his marriage should be terminated. On this basis, he had also claimed sole custody of their two surviving sons.

Daniel Rogers had represented Carl Lawrence in the custody case and Leif Hanson had represented his ex-wife.

Custody had been awarded to Carl without much argument. Dr. Tyler had testified at the hearing. It would be interesting to hear what he had to say, if he was still alive today. Terry made a mental note to check him out when she got to the office.

The report of a social worker who for some reason had visited the Lawrence men in 1963 proved to be interesting. Carl Lawrence apparently had moved away from Reno to a place called Greening near Lostine, Oregon. On January 7, 1963 Cyril Gosh, a social worker with Wallowa County knocked on the door of the Lawrence house to find Thomas answering the door. It turned out the boy was at home alone. The home showed some signs of neglect, but as the social worker put it, not enough to warrant immediate action. He noted there was food in the house and the boy was clean and well clothed. When asked where his father and brother were, he answered that his brother had been bad and sent away. Gosh checked out the rest of the property and found the father upstairs in bed, dead. Gosh called the Lostine police

If it hadn't been destroyed, the police record would still be in the archives of the Lostine police. Terry could request it without a court order; they'd probably be happy to oblige.

The final document in the file was a record of Thomas Lawrence, taken into the St. Thomas Home for Boys in Lostine on January 9, 1963.

Terry shut the file. She had plenty to go on, at least until she could say for certain whether Kessler was one of Louisa's children. From everything she had learned so far, it was possible. The allegations of childhood abuse, abandonment, possibly psychopathic behavior in childhood, it fit Kessler's profile. Not to mention the spray painted Z-symbol in the barn where his mother had been found.

Terry stuffed the file in the glove compartment and started the car.

_December 20, 2005_

_Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles_

Don hadn't said a word as he had wheeled Kessler's bed into the elevator. Kessler had protested, for the first time since his arrest and Don had awarded himself an inward grin at managing to winnow a reaction out of the suspect.

The basement corridor was low, pipes running along the ceiling. Kessler had fallen silent in his protests, as they had neared a white painted metal door at the far end of the corridor.

Don leaned down to Kessler. "We're in the basement. Underground. You do you like it so far?"

Kessler said nothing, but there was defiance on his face. Don started to wonder whether he was wrong and this wasn't the way to break Kessler. He stepped forward and opened the white door, revealing a dark room. It was just falling in enough light to make out shelves in the background. Beyond that it was dark.

"We're going on a little walk." Don unlocked the handcuffs binding Kessler to the bed and roughly helped him to his feet. "Come on."

He pushed Kessler along the corridor past the bed. Kessler didn't speak, but his hand gripped Don's forearm with steel strength. Don sensed Kessler's unspoken fear, but he persisted, as he needed to push him past his resistance. The closer they got the dark doorway, the harder Kessler struggled against him, but still he would not speak. Don stopped on the doorstep.

"We are two stories underground, and there are no windows down here. Once you are in there and the door closes, it will be dark. Very dark. You won't be able to see anything and you won't be able to get out," Don whispered to Kessler.

"I'm not afraid of any of you," Kessler said defiantly. "I won't tell you anything."

Don gripped the smaller Kessler by the shoulders and pushed him forwards into the dark storage room.

Kessler rapidly ducked under Don's hands. He threw his elbow into the agent's stomach and ran as fast as he could towards freedom. Despite the pain, Don ran after him after only a second's pause. Kessler was significantly weakened; there hadn't been much force behind his push. Don caught Kessler midway to the service elevator. He hurt, but Kessler had suffered worse from his escape attempt. Running even the small distance had exhausted the terminally ill man. He was gasping and unable to offer much resistance as Don dragged him back to the storage room. Don quickly cuffed Kessler to a metal shelf. Kessler had given up all pretenses of calm and was screaming insults.

"Shut up, Kessler! Tell me where you stashed them and I might let you out of here." Don had taken the first step and there was no going back now.

"You will never find them! He was evil and wicked. I had to do it. I had to protect the others from him. He was going to hurt them. He was evil!" Kessler screamed in panic.

Don shuddered. Kessler was talking all right, but this wasn't what he had been hoping for. This was a confession to a murder.

"How? How did you kill him?" He couldn't bring himself to say his brother's name.

"He had to be punished for his evil," Kessler spat with venom. "He was trapped! Let me go!"

Hope flared up inside Don once again. Maybe Kessler had just locked them up somewhere to die of exposure. It was not a pretty fate, but at least he could hope.

"Where did you take Charlie?" There were so many possibilities Don didn't even want to consider, but at this point he only wanted Kessler to confess.

"Charlie took a princess into the forest." Kessler's strength was waning. Soon Don's time would run out and with it, the time of Anna and Charlie.

"Where? Tell me, where did you take him?" Don insisted and pulled the outside door shut, placing them in total darkness.

Kessler screeched. Dom heard the sound of paper tearing and suddenly something white-hot was jammed into his right side with force. Seconds ran together, his own scream mingled with pain and there was warm, sticky blood under his fingers. A door slammed shut somewhere and water was rushing.

TBC


	21. December 20, 2005 Part 2

December 20, 2005

FBI Field Office, Los Angeles

On the way back to the office, Terry had been mentally drawing up a plan of action. Part of her was tempted to head out to Lostine as soon as possible and talk to the people involved directly, but it wasn't just a long shot. DeWinter would almost certainly deny her request, at least until she had solid proof that Gerald Lawrence was the man currently in hospital under the name of Adam Kessler. Even then, there was no guarantee that even the most thorough profile could help them find Charlie and Anna. Profiles were a valuable asset to an investigation such as this, but they couldn't replace the stroke of luck they needed to break the case.

Grabbing a cup of cheap coffee and a candy bar from the vending machine in the hallway, Terry made her way to her desk. Despite the early hour, the office was already bustling with activity. But there was none of the intensity that usually accompanied a high profile case. An atmosphere of exhaustion and quiet resignation was hanging over the office. It was only sheer determination that kept the investigation going. They weren't ready to admit defeat, not yet, but the break they needed wasn't coming.

Terry took a sip from her coffee and checked her watch. It was just past 8 a.m., but with any luck, she would be able to reach someone at St. Thomas', if the home even still existed.

Terry was in luck. Not only did the telephone number in the file that Erica had given her still work, but her call was answered after the first ring.

The man on the other end sounded rather young, and somewhat stressed, but when she introduced herself and explained why she was calling, he seemed willing enough to help.

"Well, normally, we don't keep track any of the kids once they are out of the system, but I know Thomas Lawrence personally. Although I cannot imagine what the FBI would want from him…," the man on the other end, who had introduced himself as Owen Jones, told her.

"As I said, we are just investigating an incident that took place in the area around the time when he was a child and we are looking for anyone who might be able to give us information," Terry lied. She needed to tread carefully. If Thomas Lawrence really had something to hide, the news that the FBI was looking for him might scare him into taking off.

"In that case, I'm sure he is more than willing to help you out. From what I've heard, he didn't have it easy before he came to the home, but today he is one of our biggest donors. He really cares about our boys. He even coaches our basketball team."

"So, you have seen him recently?" Terry tried hard to hide her disappointment. It was starting to sound like they could cross Thomas off their list. That left his brother Gerald, but unless Thomas was willing or able to help them track down his brother, making the link between him and Kessler, if it even existed, very tenuous.

"Yes, I saw him just yesterday. We are repainting some rooms here at the home at the moment, and he and his wife brought by some supplies. I really can't imagine him being mixed up with anything that would interest the FBI."

"If you could still give me his phone number and address? That would be very helpful."

"Of course."

Terry took down the phone number and address, thanked Owen Jones again and hung up. For a moment, her hand hovered over the phone, ready to dial the number she'd just been given, when she hesitated. She had no evidence to back up her suspicions, but based on everything she had read and heard over the past few days, she knew she was close to uncovering something that had been buried for a long time. They knew for a fact that Kessler hadn't been acting alone, they knew that there was someone else who had intimate knowledge of Kessler's plans and was willing to act on his behalf. Unless, the driving force behind the killings wasn't Kessler after all. There was a chance that his delusions were indeed as severe as they appeared, which would have rendered him increasingly disorganized as his illness progressed. If Thomas was indeed involved, calling him could put Charlie and Anna in even greater danger.

oOo

December 20, 2005  
Mount Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles

It was physical pain that brought Don back to consciousness. His side was throbbing fiercely and it felt like a fist was pounding on his brain. For a brief moment, just before he came to full awareness, Don didn't know where he was, or what had happened. Then it all came back to him and the pain was much worse than any physical injury had ever hurt him. Biting back the guilt, Don forced his eyes open.

"Don? You all right?" a familiar voice off to his side asked. Don turned his head and saw David leaning against the wall.

"Yeah," Don lied. "Where's Kessler?"

"No one knows. Hospital security is searching the grounds right now, but it could take a while."

"He's gone," Don said and sighed. "He wouldn't hang around. Did you call DeWinter?"

"Not yet. I thought I'd wait until I hear the story from you." David sounded calm, but Don had known him long enough to know that he was furious.

"Thanks, I really appreciate it." Don tried to pretend that nothing had happened.

"Consider it a favour. Now, tell me what happened. All of it." David's voice had gone cold and hard.

Don swallowed and started talking.

oOo

December 20, 2005  
FBI Field Office, Los Angeles

Terry didn't think anyone would pick up the phone, but after the twentieth ring, a man answered.

"Who's there?" His voice was hushed and Terry could sense the fear in it.

"My name is Terry Lake. Who am I talking to?"

"What do you want?"

"I'm trying to reach Thomas Lawrence."

"That's me," he confirmed. "What do you want?"

Terry hesitated for a moment before answering. "I want to talk to you about your brother Gerald."

"I don't know anything," Thomas told her, and then the line went dead.

Terry waited for a moment, now convinced that she was on the right track. She hit 'redial'. This time, Thomas picked up immediately.

"Who's there?"

"It's Terry Lake again. It is really important that I talk to you."

"Are you with the police?"

"I'm an FBI agent. Your brother's name has come up in an investigation and we would like to talk to him," Terry said. The less Thomas felt threatened, the more likely he was to provide her with information.

There was silence on the other end.

"You know, don't you?" Thomas asked suddenly.

"Know what, sir?" Best to remain friendly and non-threatening.

"About the murders. You know it's him." Thomas sounded almost relieved.

"We suspect that the man we have in custody is indeed your brother," Terry confirmed, hoping that Thomas would stay on the line.

"Don't you talk to each other? He's gotten out. Done a runner, whatever you want to call it." The panic was back in his voice.

Terry couldn't believe her ears. Kessler was under guard around the clock, he was heavily medicated - there was no way he could escape. She briefly wondered if they were really talking about the same man.

Realizing that Thomas was waiting for an answer. Terry did the only thing she could think of. "Can I call you back in a minute?" she asked Thomas.

"Give me your number, and I'll call you back."

Terry quickly gave him the number of her mobile, knowing that it might be the last she ever heard of Thomas. He was obviously afraid of his brother and there was a good chance that he would simply pack his bags and put as much distance as he could between his brother and himself and his family. Terry couldn't really blame him. She had no sooner hung up when her mobile rang. Caller ID indicated that it was David. Terry answered, already knowing that she was about to receive bad news. The question was only how bad.

oOo

December 20, 2005  
FBI Field Office, Los Angeles

It wasn't long after the call from David that the office was almost deserted. Almost everyone was out on the terrain, helping with the hunt on Kessler. Somehow the news had gotten out to the media before anyone at the FBI had been aware of the escape. Terry wasn't sure what exactly had happened. David hadn't had the time to get into details on the phone. All he had told her was that Kessler had escaped and that they needed personnel down at the hospital to deal with the situation. Technically not back at work at all yet, much less authorized to be in the field, Terry had been left behind at the office. With the news feed running in the background on her computer, Terry wasn't sure what to do next. Thomas was probably not going to call her back. That left tracking down Dr. Tyler and the social worker, Cyril Gosh, as the logical next step. She already had their reports and there was little chance that they could tell her anything more, not after such a long time. She had been lucky to come across Erica Logan, who had been driven by guilt into speaking up.

Background checks on Thomas Lawrence had so far turned up nothing of interest. By all appearances, he was an upstanding member of society. He didn't have a criminal record and had never been arrested and there was no indication of any sealed juvenile record either. He owned a hardware store in Lostine, paid his taxes and had been married to Abby Kenan for eighteen years. Squeaky clean, in other words. Terry sighed and leaned back, her injury protesting against the motion.

In that moment, her cell phone rang again. No caller ID was displayed. Terry answered the phone. Much to her surprise, it was Thomas on the other end.

"I can't talk long, but there are some things you should know," he began. There was a lot of noise in the background, what sounded like a busy road and his voice was hushed.

"I appreciate any information you can give me about your brother."

"First, I want to make it clear that I haven't seen or spoken to him since we were at the home together. I have nothing to do with what he's done." He was protesting his innocence a bit too vehemently for Terry's liking, but she had checked out his story about having heard about the escape on the news and it had checked out. The news had broken a good ten minutes before he had mentioned it during their conversation.

"It's all right. No one is saying that you have. The thing I really need to know is if you have any idea where your brother could go?"

"I don't know – as I have said, we haven't spoken in decades. I had no idea he was in LA, until…" Thomas broke off, as if he had said too much. But that was something Terry was curious about – had Thomas only known it was his brother after the arrest had been on the news, or had he suspected something earlier. His fear of his older brother suggested that he knew very well what Gerald was capable of. And why hadn't he contacted the police or the FBI after the arrest, Terry wondered.

"Mr. Lawrence, for the moment, the only thing I'm interested in is finding your brother before anyone else is hurt and finding his hostages," Terry said, hoping to reassure him that they weren't after him and to get him to open up to her.

"I don't know where he is," Thomas repeated.

"What did you want to tell me about?" Terry decided to change tactics.

"He's killed more people. Not just the ones that were on the news. He killed a boy at the home. He was the real Adam Kessler. Gerald killed him." Thomas hung up.

Terry stared at the phone for a moment. She doubted that Thomas was as ignorant as he claimed, but was it fear of his brother or fear of getting caught that kept him from talking? But she now had confirmation that Adam Kessler really was Gerald Lawrence. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place one after another, but she still couldn't make out the image.

Maybe she was just looking in the wrong place, Terry wondered as she stretched carefully, trying to ease the knots that had formed between her shoulders. Maybe the riddles were the key after all. Terry was about to call Larry, when she spotted Don and David entering the main office.

They were keeping their voices down, but from their animated gesturing, Terry could tell that emotions were running high and it looked like they were arguing. Don looked even worse than usual these days. He wasn't wearing a tie, his shirt was blood-stained and torn and his jacket was slung over his arm.

"Agent Eppes?" DeWinter suddenly called from across the room, where he stood in the doorframe of his office. "In my office, now!"

"Yes, sir." Don put on his suit jacket, straightened the rumpled fabric, and followed DeWinter into his office. The door slammed shut behind the two men.

David rubbed a hand over his face and walked over to where Terry sat.

"How bad is it, David?"

"Worse than you can imagine. I haven't been able to get the full story out of him, but apparently Don was determined to make Kessler talk, so he dismissed the guard and took Kessler down to the basement."

Terry nodded, horrified. "Kessler's worst nightmare is being locked in the dark." She paused for a moment before she continued. "Did he get anything? From Kessler, I mean. Did he say anything about Anna and Charlie?"

"I don't think so. Don wouldn't say. If he knew anything, he would let us know straight away. He wants them found more than anything." David sighed. "DeWinter is going to have his job for this, no questions asked. But you know, I can't help feel like it's our fault that we let things get this far. Don should have been off the case the moment Charlie went missing. He…"

David was interrupted when the door to DeWinter's office flew open again and Don came storming out.

"Agent Eppes, we are not finished here!" DeWinter called after him.

Don turned around, facing DeWinter.

"No, sir, I'm afraid we are. You might not care if your daughter's killer is found, but I happen to care about my family! I'm doing whatever it takes to get my brother back!" With that, Don stormed out of the office.

oOo

December 20, 2005  
Underground Parking Garage, FBI Field Office, Los Angeles

Terry slipped through the heavy metal door leading into the parking garage just before it slammed shut. She didn't stop, but hurried towards Don, who was just a few feet from his car, and by all appearance untouched by the storm that had gone through the office only minutes ago.

"Don! What the hell happened! You can get away with blowing up like this at me. The FBI always was and always will be a boys' club, but DeWinter will have you out of the Bureau for this. Is it true what David is saying? There is a word for that. It's called torture! I understand that you want to find Charlie, but you went too far." She stopped, standing mere inches from him, anger radiating off her.

"I don't know what you are talking about. Now, please get out of my way."  
Don's tone of voice was calm, but there was a tension in it that made Terry shudder. In that moment, he was a complete stranger to her.

"At least tell me what really happened! No one saw Kessler after you took him down to the basement! What happened? Did he tell you anything?" Terry demanded, wanting to believe that Don hadn't stepped over the fine line separating them from the other side.

"I interviewed him again. I was trying to find out where he was holding the hostages," Don replied evenly, like it was just another case. He reached for his car keys

Terry wasn't ready to give up yet. She had known Don for years, and this wasn't him. Even with the lives of his brother and a little girl on the line, Terry didn't think that he'd help a serial murderer escape. That went against everything Don believed in. In the last twelve hours, Don's behaviour had made the most radical change. She could understand why he had gone to see Kessler. It had been raining steadily for twelve hours and time was running out for Charlie and the girl. But even if Kessler had promised Don information in exchange for his freedom, the Don she knew would never have accepted such a deal. He knew too much about the criminal mind to trust a serial killer.

"What did Kessler tell you? He is a sick old man, and he's trying to make us play the game by his rules. But we have the best chances of finding Anna and Charlie if we work with what we have. We know almost for certain who Kessler is now." Terry pleaded, but at the same time she knew those were empty words. They might know Kessler's real name, but it had gotten them no closer to locating Charlie and Anna. Terry was convinced that the place where Kessler was holding Charlie and the girl had some significance for him, but without the help of his brother, they were once again at a dead end.

Don ignored her and pushed her out of the way. Terry stumbled, physically still weakened from injury and medication, and hit the ground hard. Pain surged through her lower arm that she had instinctively thrown out to protect herself in the fall. Don didn't even spare her a second glance. He unlocked his car, and was about to get in when Terry, back on her feet regardless of the fierce pain in her arm, grabbed his arm with her good hand, determined to stop him from losing what little he had left. Don lashed out, his hand flew in her face, savagely back-handing her. Terry stumbled, fell again, got back up, rage flaring up in her. The car door slammed shut and Don started the motor, but before he could pull out of his parking space, Terry planted herself firmly in his path.

"Don! Get out of the car!" Terry yelled. She could see Don's face through the windshield, but the face of a man this familiar had made way to a distorted mask, twisted by crazed determination. Don put the car in reverse, backed further into parking space to try and swerve around her. Terry wouldn't have any of it. She stepped right in the way of the car.

"Don, listen to me! I think I know who Kessler really is." Terry called out. "Don! We can get him!" Don didn't even seem to be aware of her. Horrified, Terry realized that he wasn't going to stop. She dove out of the way, but it was too late. The car caught her in the air, slamming and propelling her into a nearby pillar.

The impact hurt more than anything Terry had ever felt. It felt like every bone in her body shattered the moment she made contact with the concrete pillar. Terry slumped to the ground and the last thing she saw through red-clouded vision was Don, speeding away.

oOo

December 20, 2005  
FBI Field Office, Los Angeles

Despite David's best efforts, DeWinter had been adamant. Mitigating circumstances or not, Don had gone too far. He was suspended without pay and DeWinter had already put a call through to Internal Affairs. Don had probably already taken off, but Terry hadn't returned yet, so David held out some hope that she might have been able to talk to him, calm him down at least. In the frame of mind Don was in right now, it wasn't safe for him to get behind the wheel.

David pushed open the heavy steel door leading to the underground car park. The light was still on, but he couldn't see or hear his co-workers. Not able to see Don's parking spot from where he was, David made his way through the rows of cars.

Don's car was gone. David was about to turn back when he heard something. It sounded like a moan. Instinctively he reached for his weapon. It didn't seem possible, but was there some way that Kessler could have made his way here to the field office? He was crazy and had nothing to lose, a very dangerous combination.

He saw the blood first – deep red smears on one of the concrete pillars. Feeling his heart pounding against the inside of his chest, David drew his weapon and approached as silently as he could. It wasn't until he stood in front of the pillar that he saw Terry. It was instantly clear that the blood clinging to the pillar was hers. Her face and clothes were stained with blood. David kneeled down to check her pulse, his eyes simultaneously searching her body for any visible injuries. From what he could see at first glance, there wasn't enough blood for it to be a stab or gunshot injury. However, the fact that most of the blood seemed to be coming from a head wound filled him with concern. Trying to keep an eye both on Terry and the area around him, David pulled out his portable. He needed to get Terry help and they needed to lock down the building to make sure that Kessler didn't get away this time.

oOo

December 17, 2005  
Mount Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles

Terry was drifting, just beneath the surface of consciousness. It was a comfortable, safe place, down where memories and pain couldn't reach her. From time to time, sounds filtered through to her, muted and unrecognizable. For the first time in what seemed like a very long time, she felt truly at peace.

Slowly, her senses were working their way back to awareness, the muted sounds were growing sharper, and the pain returned.

Terry opened her eyes, and as with the rest of her senses, her vision returned only slowly. What seemed like a collection of mainly white clouds and bright light at first morphed into what Terry recognized as a hospital room that seemed somehow familiar to her - the raid on Kessler's house, she suddenly remembered. He'd gotten the drop on her, jumped her, nearly cut her throat. That's why she was in hospital.  
But that couldn't be right, Terry realized. That had happened days ago; she'd already left the hospital. And it wasn't her neck that hurt. Her whole body felt like one big bruise, but her head, chest and arm hurt even more than the rest of her. Something had happened, something bad. She needed to know. She struggled to sit up, but even trying to raise her head from the pillow sent a spike of white hot pain lancing through her skull, bringing tears to her eyes.

She must have cried out, because suddenly David was there, leaning over her, gently trying to keep her down.

"Terry, can you hear me?"

Terry tried to reply, but she was fading fast.

TBC


	22. December 20, 2005 Part 3

oOo

_December 20, 2005_

_Mount Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles_

The next time Terry woke, the dulling effects of the drugs she must have been given had started to wear off. She was in considerable pain, but the fog around her mind had cleared. Without moving her head, Terry explored her field of vision. She could see a sliver of grey sky through a window on her left. It looked like it was daytime, but Terry couldn't tell if it was morning or afternoon. There was what looked like a vacant chair to the right of her bed. She heard a soft clicking sound, and for a moment Terry wondered where it had come from when David moved into her field of vision. When he saw her awake, a smile spread over his face. David pulled his chair in closer to the bed and sat down, taking her hand.

"David, what's wrong?" Terry managed to ask, worried that there was something seriously wrong. She and David were good friends, but that was it. She expected him to be concerned about her, but not like this. Unless there was something very, very wrong.

"How are you feeling?" David asked instead of answering her question.

"Like I can't move my head without it exploding," Terry ground out. The act of speaking caused the ache in her head to intensify.

"I'll get a doctor for you. Just hang on for a minute."

"No, it's okay," Terry told him, hoping that this time she would be able to stay awake long enough to figure out what was going on. "What happened?"

"You were in an accident." Even now, Terry could tell that David was lying. But before she had a chance to question him further, he continued. "Listen, there is someone from Internal Affairs waiting to talk to you. Do you feel up to answering a few questions?"

"About what?" Terry's confusion was growing by the second.

"Just tell them what you remember. It will be fine," David reassured her.

"What is going on? Did someone else get hurt in the accident? Did I hurt someone?" Terry asked, but David had already moved out of sight. Terry heard the door open, heard David talking to someone, then the door closed and a woman in a pinstripe suit appeared.

"Agent Lake, I'm Agent Arnett with Internal Affairs. I appreciate that this comes very soon, but do you feel up to answering a few questions?"

"Yes, I think so." It was starting to get harder to keep her eyes open, but Terry was determined to find out what was going on.

"All right. Can you tell me what happened after you left your office this morning?"

"I'm not sure…I remember coming to work around 7.45 this morning. I had received some information from an informant earlier and I wanted to follow up on the information, but I honestly don't remember what happened after I got to the office."

"So, you do not recall following Agent Eppes after he left the office following the altercation with Agent DeWinter?"

"No, I don't. I don't remember any of this. What is this about?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't tell you. It could compromise your statement later on. It's important you tell me everything you remember. We want your version of events."

"I'm sorry. But there isn't anything I can tell you. I don't remember anything about the things you're asking me." Terry allowed her eyes to drift shut, knowing that she wouldn't be able to hold on to consciousness much longer.

"That's all right." Agent Arnett's voice softened. "We'll continue this once you are better."

oOo

_December 20, 2005_

_Mount Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles_

The dog-eared magazines in the waiting room two corridors down from Terry's room offered nothing new as David waited for Agent Arnett to return. He couldn't stop wondering what Terry was telling the IA officer this very moment. She was barely conscious and it hadn't seemed like she recalled anything about the day's events. David wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried. He had yet to see the surveillance tape, having been at the hospital with Terry since she was brought in that morning, but he had heard what had happened. At first, he couldn't believe it, refused to believe that Don could do something like this to a friend, under any circumstances. He had seen his friend pushed to the limit over the past few days, but despite telling Don to get off the case, he would never have anticipated this. They had failed Don, all of them. They should have forced him off the case, made him take time off before things got anywhere near where they were now. Now, Don's career was over, no doubt about it—no matter what Terry told Agent Arnett and her people. He might as well stop wondering, David told himself and start figuring out what he was going to tell the IA agents when they came around to asking him. He knew how things like that worked. The investigation would drag on for months as every decision Don had made in his line of work would be put under the microscope.

"Agent Sinclair?"

David looked up. He had been lost in thought, the glossy magazine forgotten in his hands.

"We should return to the field office. The rest of your colleagues have already been interviewed, but we still need to take a full statement from you regarding the incident," Agent Arnett told him dispassionately. David hated to leave the hospital. Terry's injuries weren't life threatening. She had gotten off relatively lightly with a few broken bones, a hairline skull fracture and a severe concussion. She would have to have surgery in the next few days to set the bones in her arm properly, but the doctors wanted to wait because of her concussion. He had been told that it would most likely be a few days until Terry would be able to stay awake for more than a few minutes. There was really nothing he could do for her here.

At least he would have a chance to look through Terry's desk when he got back to the office. Though officially still on sick leave, Terry had been working long days since leaving the hospital and David was hoping that she might have somehow uncovered a lead everyone else had missed until now. It was the last and possibly only chance of finding Anna and Charlie. But with Don suddenly taken out of the equation, it was as if David was finally allowing himself to give into what he had known for days – they weren't going to find Charlie and Anna in time. The investigation was stalling and had been for days. They were turning in circles. None of the latest developments had brought them any closer to unlocking Kessler. If Terry hadn't uncovered anything new, they weren't going to find anything.

oOo

_December 20, 2005_

_Florenceway Rest Stop, Los Angeles_

Don only noticed where he was when he saw the sign informing passing motorists that the Florenceway rest stop lay one hundred yards ahead. He found himself pulling over into the right lane, making the turn and entering the rest stop area. He pulled into the first available parking space, his hands trembling as he turned off the engine. Hands still on the steering wheel, he lowered his head to rest between his hands. He didn't rest for long, just enough for his breathing to return to normal. Then he got out of the car, determined to stop feeling sorry for himself. He had chosen the road of no return, so he might as well start figuring out his next step. A quick look at his car revealed some minor damage to the front, not really enough to draw anyone's attention. Not unless they were looking for evidence of an accident. Still, seeing the damage stirred something in him, that even in his present state, Don couldn't suppress. Terry didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of his fury. He could only hope that she was all right. He shouldn't have just driven off. It was like he hadn't been himself, like he was just an onlooker, watching himself being consumed by rage, tearing down everything he had built for himself. If he got back his brother, it would be worth it. But so far, he had to admit that he didn't have a lot to show for his efforts. Kessler had told him the one thing he hadn't wanted to hear, but had feared all along.

Making up his mind, Don headed over to the rest stop's gas station. He needed to get the blood off his car, before some passer-by noticed and called the police. The FBI was bound to be looking for him by now. He needed to get out of the city**. **

Don got a bunch of paper towels from a dispenser at the gas station and returned to his car. He wiped off the blood as well as he could and deposited the towels in the nearest trashcan. He then went into the kiosk and bought some first aid supplies, a few bottles of Gatorade and a bunch of candy bars.

He put the food into the back of the car. He pulled out his cell phone and reinserted the battery he had taken out to prevent the FBI from pinging his phone and locating him that way. His mailbox didn't hold many surprises. Calls from DeWinter and David, both telling him to come in and give himself up, just worded differently. Don deleted the messages. There were also several messages from Larry, telling him to call back ASAP.

Don hesitated for a moment, then he called Larry's number. Larry picked up after the first ring, sounding out of breath.

"Larry, I got your message, what is it?" Don got to the point at once, not bothering with niceties.

"Amita and I finally manage to crack the code you got from Kessler. It's a set of GPS co-ordinates. At least that is the most likely interpretation." Larry gave Don the co-ordinates. Still on the phone, Don got back into his car and started up the engine.

"Were there just the co-ordinates or did he write something else?" Don was punching the co-ordinates into the SatNav as he spoke.

"Nothing we could make out. That's what made cracking the code so difficult. Surrounding the intended message by gibberish was actually a pretty clever move. That way…" The address was finally displayed on screen.

"Larry, I appreciate your help, really. But I have to go. If these co-ordinates do lead to Charlie and Anna…"

"I understand. I hope you find Charles," Larry said and hung up.

Don gunned the engine and tore out of the parking lot.

oOo

_December 20, 2005_

_Wallowa County, Oregon_

Don had driven as fast as he had dared without risking to attract attention. Still, by the time he reached the co-ordinates night had started to fall. He had followed the road as far as he could, leaving the highway about fifty miles back, following smaller and smaller roads since then, until he turned onto a small dirt track, leading out into the rough terrain.

It was a tough decision to make, but eventually he decided to park the car amongst a copse of trees at the side of the road. He would have liked to park closer to the co-ordinates that Larry had given him, but he was afraid that the noise would tip off Kessler, if he was indeed in the area. On the other hand, he wanted to park as closely to the location as possible, in case he found Charlie and Anna and needed to carry one or both of them to the car. He was hoping that it wouldn't come to that, but after such a long time, he had to be prepared for anything. In the end, he grabbed a flashlight and the first aid kit, supplemented by two bottles of Gatorade and a few candy bars and set out into the darkness.

oOo

_December 20, 2005_

_Wallowa County, Oregon_

Using only his compass as a guide, Don made his way through the night. Fortunately, the area wasn't overgrown too densely, allowing him to progress at a reasonable speed. According to the SatNav, he had parked 500m away from the target co-ordinates and by his estimate he should have almost covered the distance at this point. So far, he couldn't see anything stand out. He listened for any sounds, but the sounds of nature were the only things reaching his ears.

Don continued his way forward. He was almost on top of the co-ordinates when he saw the hatch. The shaft stood about three feet above the ground, covered by a metal grille. Don switched on the flashlight, pointing it downwards. The shaft seemed to reach at least twenty feet down. Don put down the flashlight, lifted the grille and pulled it off. He felt the urge to call out to his brother, to let him know that rescue was imminent, if he was indeed down there and not least to reassure himself.

Don put down the grille, took the flashlight into his mouth and started climbing down the shaft. The air was damp and musty, but he couldn't smell the characteristic odour of decomposing flesh. He reached the bottom of the shaft, landing in four feet of cold water—rain, accumulated over the past few days, he realized. Four feet, could be cutting it close. If they were tied down, they could have drowned already. Don waded through the water.

"Charlie! Anna! Can you hear me?!" Don called out, now fairly confident that Kessler wasn't around. He wouldn't be waiting around in the dark. Kessler was terrified of the dark, Don realized, angry at himself for not realizing sooner. The beam of light suddenly swept over something beneath the water. Don plunged forwards, diving beneath the surface. It was a human body all right, but Don immediately realized that it couldn't be his brother, or the girl for that matter. It was the emaciated figure of Adam Kessler. Don breathed a sigh of relief, but the feeling didn't last for very long. This was the one thing he hadn't expected. Kessler wouldn't have gone down here voluntarily and Don was convinced that he hadn't died of natural causes either, no matter how ill he was. It was probably fortunate for him. If Don had gotten his hands on Kessler, what had happened at the hospital this morning would have seemed like a walk in the park.

oOo

_December 20, 2005_

_Wallowa County, Oregon_

Don changed into the set of spare clothes he kept in the car. The adrenaline rush was fading, leaving him hungry, tired and jittery. It wasn't until he was half way through his second candy bar when he realized something.

Kessler had to have gotten out here somehow. Either someone had dropped him off or he had a car somewhere. There were wider implications tooKessler being murdered in his hide-out meant that someone else had known about the place and probably about the other things Kessler had been up to as well. This confirmed what they already knew, that Kessler had an accomplice somewhere out there and they had nothing that could lead them to him. Don tossed aside the half-eaten candy bar and picked up the flashlight again. He started walking the area in concentric circles, widening his radius with every pass.

It didn't take him more than twenty minutes to find another car, parked at the side of a dirt road coming from the other direction. The vehicle, a blue Saab, was unlocked, but the locks showed no sign of being tampered with. Don rifled through the glove compartment and found a mobile phone, a few maps and some chewing gum. There was a hospital sticker affixed to the rear window. Kessler had probably stolen the car from the hospital parking lot, driven out here and met up with his accomplice. Don considered the thought and picked up the mobile phone, which was switched on. Don checked the details of the last call made from the phone. It had been placed just past 11 a.m., definitely after Kessler had stolen the car. Don checked the number. The area code wasn't familiar.

He dialled the number, not caring that it was already very late. He wasn't surprised that he only reached an answering machine. The recording told him that he had reached the number of Thomas and Abby Lawrence. Don hung up and dialled directory assistance.

oOo

_December 20, 2005_

_FBI Field Office, Los Angeles_

David was physically and mentally drained by the time IA had finished with him. The interview had lasted for almost three hours as they had gone over everything that had happened since he had met Don at the hospital that morning. Knowing that he would not be able to keep up with a lie during the hours of grilling IA was bound to put him through, he had told strictly the truth, as damaging as it was. IA had jumped on the fact that he hadn't called DeWinter immediately after learning that Kessler was missing and that instead, he had waited until he had talked to Don. They had hinted that he might be suspended for the duration of the investigation, but so far, it hadn't come to that. But the investigation was only starting to gain momentum, and David wasn't too hopeful as far as a happy outcome was concerned.

In retrospect, David wasn't so sure himself why he had acted the way he had. He had wanted to protect Don, but had he really been so blind to the bigger picture? David wasn't sure if he genuinely hadn't seen what was going on with Don or if he had just not wanted to see it.

There was no news in the hunt of Kessler. It was believed that he had stolen a midnight blue Saab, but the car hadn't been spotted since. As Kessler had no known associates, there wasn't any obvious place they could look for him either. Passing Terry's desk on his way out, he stopped and looked over the tidy surface. There was a notepad lying open, with what looked like a list of names and phone numbers. Some of them were crossed out. There was a manila folder underneath the notepad. Feeling like an intruder, David flipped open the folder. There were only about two dozen sheets in the folder, most of which seemed to be concerned with the members of the Lawrence family and their various encounters with the state. The names weren't familiar to David and he had no idea why Terry had been researching them. For all he knew, they might not even be linked to their current affair, although it seemed unconceivable that Terry would work on something else at a time like this. He made a mental note to ask her about it once she was better, but in the meantime, he was planning to check into it himself, preferably before he got himself suspended.

David gathered both the notepad and the manila folder and stowed them in his briefcase. It wasn't that late yet and he could easily put in two more hours before sleep became a pressing need, but he wanted to go and see Alan before he returned home. He didn't know if IA had talked to Don's father yet. They were keeping their whole investigation very much on a need to know basis and apparently he didn't need to know. There were rumours circulating around the office, allegedly there was talk of bringing in a whole other team to take over the case, seeing how deeply involved almost everyone in the field office had become.

oOo

_December 20, 2005_

_Eppes Residence, Los Angeles_

The lights were turned off but David could see the blue glimmer of the television shining through the windows. David was actually surprised when Alan answered the door almost immediately.

"David, has something happened?" The older man's face looked drawn and deeply etched with worry.

"Yes, can we go inside?"

"It's Don, isn't it?" Alan paled before his eyes.

"No, not like you think." David was quick to reassure him when he realized what Alan had to be thinking. "Can we go inside?" He repeated.

"Sure."

The two men went inside and Alan led the way into the living room. The television was on mute, there were dirty plates on the table. Alan gestured to one of the armchairs and sat down on the couch himself.

"What is going on? Is there any news about Charlie?"

"Don, he's gone off on his own, after assaulting a colleague from the looks of it. The FBI is looking for him."

"Don is a fugitive? Why haven't I heard of this from the FBI?"

"I don't know, it's all a bit chaotic at the office today. What I do know is that for the moment, he is just wanted for questioning." It didn't sound like much of a consolation. "It would be best if he turned himself in as soon as possible, Alan."

"How bad…how badly did he hurt that colleague?" If Alan was surprised to hear about his son's actions, he didn't show it.

"She's going to recover," David simply told him, thinking it best to leave out the details. Alan was hurting enough as it was.

"Have you had something to eat yet?" Alan suddenly asked.

"Can't say I have."

"I'll make us something. If you don't mind staying a bit, that is."

David shook his head. "No, I don't." Alan obviously needed the company and David wasn't eager to return to an empty apartment either.

TBC


	23. December 21, 2005 Part 1

oOo

David was woken by the ringing of his cell phone. He opened his eyes, blinking against the bright early morning sunlight. He scrambled to find his cell phone, finally locating it on an unfamiliar looking low table, cluttered with beer bottles. David looked around. Only now he came to realize that he was on the couch in Alan's living room. The memory of the previous night was starting to come back to him in all its splendours. His cell phone kept on ringing, despite his attempts to ignore it. David sighed and answered.

"Agent Sinclair?" The voice was male, unfamiliar. David rubbed a hand over his face, trying to get his brain up to speed and chase away his headache.

"Yes."

"It's Acting Supervisory Agent Richardson. I appreciate that it is early, but we have a lead on Kessler. His car has been spotted by a farmer in Wallowa County, Oregon, this morning. I'm sending one of my agents up there, but seeing as my team has only been on the case since this morning, I'm sending you along, to fill in the blanks, so to speak. Local authorities have been informed and they'll send someone to meet you at the Eugene Airport."

"Yes, sir." Wallowa County – that didn't ring any bells. Probably just a waste of time, David thought. Calls for witnesses usually lead to dozens of sightings all over the map. No way of knowing if any were genuine.

"Agent Smythe is heading out to meet you now. She'll brief you on everything you need to know."

Richardson hadn't said as much, but it was clear that David was expected to follow the other agent's lead. Considering he had expected to be suspended, this wasn't too bad. David checked his watch.

"Uhm, I'm at Agent Eppes' house right now," David replied, not quite knowing how to explain that he had obviously spent the night there.

But if Richardson disapproved, he didn't let on. He told David that he'd tell Agent Smythe to meet him there and hung up.

Hearing a noise from the adjoining room, David walked over to find Alan sitting at the table in the dining room, seemingly in deep contemplation over a glass of water. He looked as hung over as David felt.

"Listen Alan, I'm really sorry about last night. I never should have…" David began to apologize not quite sure where to start. The whole thing had been a mistake. He had come here because he wanted Alan to hear the bad news from someone he knew. He certainly hadn't come to get himself and Alan drunk. Things had just progressed somehow to the stage where one beer was followed by the next, no questions asked. He had never meant to tell Alan what was on the surveillance tape from the garage, but the alcohol had made him lose common sense, and somehow it had all gotten out. David could only hope that Alan had already been too plastered to remember the conversation the next morning.

"It's okay, David. I take it that was the office? Do you want some aspirin before you head back out?" Alan didn't even ask what the news from the office was.

"I appreciate it, really." David considered telling Alan about the lead, but he didn't want to get his hopes up if it didn't pan out.

Alan got up to get David two tablets and a glass full of water. David dropped the tablets into the water and joined Alan at the table. There was a moment of awkward silence between them, until Alan spoke.

"I'm going to go down to the hospital to visit Terry today. I just thought you might want to know."

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea."

"I know Don's made his own choices, but I feel responsible too. I should have seen it coming, but I didn't…I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to notice that Don needed my help. At least for him I could have done something."

"It's not too late…" David protested, but it was half-hearted. The surveillance tape left little doubt about Don's role in the hit-and-run. The tapes from the hospital weren't quite so damning - they didn't actually show Don doing anything unprofessional to Kessler, but he could be seen taking him to the basement. And what wasn't on the tape David had told IA himself. What had seemed like the right choice yesterday was now looking a lot like betrayal. Only when he thought about seeing Terry in hospital, he managed not to loathe himself completely. Don hadn't been the only one driven by rage and a desire for vengeance. He had been angry and he hadn't been thinking.

Before he had a chance to figure out how he could possible look Alan in the eye ever again, David was saved by the doorbell. Lucky for him, Agent Smythe had managed to cross the city in record time.

oOo

Their short flight out to Eugene was uneventful. David tried to get some sleep before what was bound to be another long day, but he had hardly dozed off when they were already preparing to land again.

Both agents had only hand luggage with them and quickly made their way into the arrivals' hall where a detective from the police precinct greeted them.

Detective Conner was friendlier than most police officers when faced with the prospect of working together with the FBI. He greeted them amicably and they made their way to the car park. Outside, the pavement was still wet from rain that had fallen overnight. Despite the sunshine and the blue sky, it was much colder than down in LA. You could tell that it really was winter.

"Have there been any more sightings of the car or the suspects?" Smythe asked as they were crossing the car park.

"Possibly. We were able to confirm the first sighting very quickly, since the witness saw the license plates. Both the plates and the description of the car match the description that's been circulated. We've sent out officers to talk to the people who live along the road where the car has been spotted, and we've turned up a few other witnesses, but some of their statements contradict each other, so we haven't been able to pin down the route yet. You know how it is with eye witness statements…"

David nodded. No surprise there.

"I would like to talk to these witnesses, as soon as possible."

"We can drive there right away, unless you want to drop by the station first." Conner unlocked the doors to a dark blue SUV**.**

"No thanks, the sooner we pin down what route he took, the better are our chances of catching him," Smythe said.

Conner and Smythe got in the front and David settled in the back seat.

oOo

Despite Detective Conner's initial attempts at making conversation, the trio soon lapsed into silence. That was just as well with David. Despite the aspirin he had taken before he'd left, David still had a throbbing headache. Much to his regret, he hadn't brought any sunglasses and the sunny weather was only making his headache worse.

Conner had told them earlier that the drive would be at least two hours even if traffic was good, so David decided to use the time to have a look at the documents he had taken from Terry's desk the previous night.

There were almost ten pages of hand-written notes on the pad. Most of it was fairly cryptic– names, phone numbers and dates – and was written in a tiny, barely legible scrawl. There was no obvious connection to Kessler or his mysterious accomplice. However, there were several mentions of a place called 'Greening' in Wallowa County.

"Detective Conner, are you familiar with a place called Greening?"

"Yes of course. It's small a community, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Can't remember there ever being something more serious than drunk driving happening there. But your car was seen just forty miles away and Greening is the next town. Why do you ask?"

David nodded, even though he knew that Conner couldn't see him from where he sat. So Greening was definitely not within the 140-mile zone that they had mapped out with Larry's help. "It's just one of the leads we are pursuing," he answered noncomitally.

"What exactly is this new lead? I'm not aware that there was anything tying Kessler to the area," Smythe remarked sharply.

"It might mean nothing." David already regretted having said anything. It was obvious that Agent Smythe didn't approve of anything that wasn't strictly by-the-book.

"You obviously thought it was important enough to pursue. If there is even a hint that Kessler might know someone in the area, we need to check it out as soon as possible."

"To be honest, I don't know if this has anything to do with the case. I have just gone through some material collected by one of our agents. She has been working on establishing a profile of Kessler to find out where he might be holding…the hostages. Greening is one of the places she mentioned in her notes. I think it might be significant. There is a local address listed."

"Whose address?"

"Gerald and Thomas Lawrence."

"Thomas Lawrence? It's probably not such a rare name, but there is one Thomas Lawrence in Lostine that I know of. He's local businessman, owns a chain of hardware stores across the entire state. I can't imagine that he's got anything to do with your case. But I guess you never know…" Conner trailed of.

"What does he have to do with the case?" Smythe asked more insistently this time.

"I don't know," David repeated. "This line of inquiry was pursued by one of my colleagues, Agent Terry Lake. She's in hospital at the moment. All I know is what she put in her notes."

"I see. Still, whatever this man's connection to Kessler, we need to speak to him."

"I can ask the captain to send someone over and ask him to come by the station later. I'm sure Mr Lawrence would be happy to help you with your investigation," Conner offered.

"No, we don't know how involved he is. If he does have something to hide, we don't want to spook him. We'll talk to him once we get back."

"All right."

Agent Smythe was pulling out her mobile phone. "Just in case, someone should speak to Agent Lake, if she is up to it yet. I want to know everything we have on Thomas Lawrence before we talk to him."

David wondered if that wasn't a bit premature – the link between Thomas Lawrence and Kessler was tenuous at best. But he understood that they needed to cover every base, now more than ever. It didn't really matter all that much if they caught Kessler or not. In his present condition, it was a miracle he had been able to get this far at all. He wasn't much of a danger to society anymore. The only thing that mattered now was finding out where he was keeping Anna and Charlie.

Hope was dwindling rapidly and David had more than once been about to give up in resignation. The only way Anna and Charlie could have possibly survived until now was if Kessler's mysterious partner was keeping them alive. If they had indeed found the accomplice-- the man who had killed Agent Ortiz--then there was a chance that he would be able to lead them to Anna and Charlie. He only wished he'd have Terry along with him. She would know better how to talk to Thomas. She seemed to have studied his background extensively and she was the trained profiler of the team.

oOo

The sun was well overhead by the time Conner finally pulled onto a narrow dirt road. A few rocky minutes later, they stopped in front of a dilapidated farmhouse. If it hadn't been for the black pick-up truck parked in front of the property, David wouldn't have thought that anyone lived there at all.

They had no sooner climbed out of the car when the front door of the house opened and a man stepped out to greet them.

"Mr. Jackson?"

"That's me all right," the man replied. "So, you're the people from the FBI?"

"Yes, I'm Agent Smythe, this is Agent Sinclair," Agent Smythe introduced them. "You called the police saying that you had seen a blue Saab passing by here in the early hours of this morning."

"Yes, I already told this to the officers who were here earlier. But they said someone else would be along."

"I appreciate you taking the time, Mr. Jackson. Can you tell us exactly what you saw this morning?"

"I was preparing breakfast. It must have been just after 4 .a.m. when I saw a car passing by. There aren't many cars coming out here, I'm the only one who lives along this road, you see. I didn't think much of it, but then I was listening to the radio while I had my breakfast and they said they were looking for a car just like the one that I just gone by my window."

"How can you be sure you saw the same car? You told the police you had seen the license plate.

"I was just getting to that. The car came back, maybe twenty minutes later. I heard the noise and went to the window. That's when I saw the license plate. And after that, I phoned the police."

"Your house is quite far away from the street. Are you sure you could see the plates? It must have been still dark."

"I may not be the youngest, but my eyes are still sharp. I even saw the driver and it wasn't the man they were looking for in the radio news. This one was younger."

"Can you describe anything else about the driver?"

"He had dark hair and he was wearing a white shirt. I saw that because he had the light on inside. There was something on the dash, looked like a map or a file."

"That's very helpful, Mr. Jackson," Agent Smythe said. "Now, did you notice anything else that was unusual the last few days? Anything you can think of, no matter how small."

"Well…" Jackson drew out the word. "I have seen an awful lot of cars around the last few days. There are quite a few small roads and dirt tracks out here. I use them when I tend to my fields, but other than me and the odd hiker, no one comes out here."

"When exactly did you notice that?"

"Not sure, sometime last week. I only started noticing because there was this one car – a lilac metallic pick-up that I saw a few times. I kept wondering who'd have a car this ugly…"

"You didn't happen to see the license plate of that car as well by any chance?"

"Mr. Jackson shrugged. I'm sorry, I didn't. Is there anything else you need? I should be getting back to work."

"I think that will be all. We do need you to make a formal statement later at the station. The police will contact you about that, probably sometime tomorrow," Conner told the witness.

"Another thing, could you maybe point out where exactly you saw the pick-up truck?" David added

"Sure, do you have a map?"

"There is one in the car, I'll go and get it." Conner offered and went back to the car.

Most of the off-road tracks weren't even on the map, but with Mr. Jackson's help, they managed to narrow down a fairly small area of land around which the pick-up truck had been sighted. Thanking their witness again for his help, Conner and the two FBI agents went back the car.

TBC


	24. December 21, 2005 Part 2

oOo

The men Conner's captain had sent were all clearly experienced when it came to searches like this. Splitting up into groups of three, each assigned to a sector, they were systematically combing the area. The terrain wasn't the most easy to search and they would be lucky if they'd cover half the area by nightfall.

David was reminded of their search in Acton Park a few days earlier, along with its grizzly result. He just hoped that this time they wouldn't find a body. But given the weather conditions this far north, Anna and Charlie wouldn't have stood a chance out here.

The bad news came when the sky just started to darken. David was with two other men, walking their allotted square in a spiral pattern when the news came over the radio – another search team had located an underground bunker. They had gone in – contrary to instructions – in the hopes of finding the hostages. But all they had found was a dead body. It was the body of an adult male, but beyond that they didn't know anything yet and wanted to wait for the crime scene unit and the coroner to arrive before disturbing anything. That they had only found one body gave David some hope, but even he had to admit that it would be a very big coincidence if the body were completely unrelated to their search and none of the other possibilities seemed very appealing.

David's mind was reeling, thoughts racing as they hiked towards the coordinates where the body had been discovered. If it was Charlie, then where was Anna? Had Don found Kessler and they had fought? Had Don killed Kessler, in self-defence or maybe even intentionally? Two days ago, David wouldn't have thought he'd even entertain the possibility, but after the incident at the hospital and the hit and run, everything seemed possible.

oOo

It seemed to take forever to reach the crime scene. At least that was what it felt like to David, but when he checked his watch, less than an hour had passed since they had received the radio call.

The crime scene laid about half a kilometre behind the end of yet another dirt track, this one looking fairly well travelled, showing multiple tire-tread patterns in the moist soil. The crime scene unit might be able to pull something meaningful from them, but in that moment the thought of calling in CSU was at the back of David's mind. He had to see the body. He had to be sure.

The three men who had found the body were gathered some distance away from the crime scene to avoid disturbing any evidence.

His heart was pounding hard as he walked up to where the body had been laid out after it had been pulled out of the water.

It took a few moments until he could speak again. "Any idea about the cause of death yet?"

"Impossible to say at this point." The woman shook her head, turning back to the body.

"Come on, Janine! Don't tell me this one has you beaten! You always have a guess or two for us."

David turned around and saw Conner standing behind him, obviously addressing the coroner.

Janine looked up, a pinched smile on her face. "All right. This is just a preliminary guess. This injury to his chest looks like a gunshot wound. From the position of the wound, I would say that it was most likely fatal, but I can't confirm until I've done the post-mortem."

"Fair enough," David replied. "He'll need to be formally identified as well. His prints are in the system and our field office has DNA and dental records on file for him as well." David pulled out his cell phone, once again trying to reach Agent Smythe, who, instead of joining the search, had returned to Lostine to try and track down more witnesses and find out more about Thomas Lawrence. Just like when he had tried earlier, there was still no reception.

"We're too far from the nearest cell tower." David had forgotten all about the detective, but he was still standing nearby. "It's your man, right?" Conner asked.

"Yes, it's the man we were looking for. One of them anyways," David forced himself to answer. Kessler was dead. He didn't deserve anything less, but David didn't feel any satisfaction. All he felt was fatigue and resignation. Regarding the vast, untouched expanse of land, illuminated by a magnificent sunset only made him realize that they would never find Anna and Charlie, in or out of time. He turned back to Conner. "Was anything else found down in the bunker?"

"Nothing so far, but from what I've heard, it's very difficult to search down there as it's all been flooded. There has been quite a lot of rain lately." Conner paused. "There is something else you should see. I just heard from one of the other teams; they found an abandoned car, not far from here. The plate and description match that of your missing agent's car. They say it looks like it's been there all night."

David nodded. He'd been afraid of that. He'd been afraid that Don had found Kessler and made him pay for what he'd done.

"We'll have to call off the search soon. It's getting too dark. They'll tow the car first thing tomorrow. Apparently CSU managed to make impressions of some of the tire tracks along the access roads. If we are lucky, some of them belong to the pick-up truck."

"That's good. Do you mind if we head to Greening before returning to the station? There is an address that I want to check out."

"Yes, you mentioned something earlier. It's no problem. Greening is practically on our way."

oOo

Lombard Street wasn't listed in the SatNav's software, so they had to rely on Conner's map to guide them. A call to Agent Smythe hadn't brought much news. They had found a few more witnesses who had more or less confirmed what Mr. Jackson had told them. As for the lilac pick-up, there was more than one registered in the greater Lostine area. Smythe had run background checks on all the owners and it had turned out that one was registered to a woman called Abby Lawrence, who incidentally was married to a Thomas Lawrence. By the time David had called, Smythe and another police officer had been on their way to pay Mrs. Lawrence a visit.

Greening seemed to be a settlement on the decline. The outskirts of the small town were littered with abandoned houses and vacant lots. Lombard Street was one of those streets. The buildings hardly dated back fifty years from the looks of them, but most of the houses were cast in darkness. Only a few windows were illuminated as they drove down the street past neglected gardens and overgrown vacant lots. Number 76 was located at the very end of the street.

Conner pulled up to the curb in front of the darkened building. Conner and David got out. Conner got a pair of flashlights from the trunk of the car, took one himself and handed the other to David. A fair distance away from any street lights, it was deep night. The air was cool and smelled of rain. The faint scent of smoke hung over the area.

"So, what's the plan, Agent Sinclair?" Conner asked, sounding actually excited.

"We take a look and if there is anything of interest, we call it in," David explained. He had his doubts that they were going to find anything. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but from what he could see of the blind windows and overgrown fence surrounding the property, it had been abandoned for a long time.

Still, when he tried the gate, it opened smoothly. They crossed the short distance over to the steps leading to the front door. David bent down to study the faded address level on the letterbox. It was hard to read, but he thought he could make out the name 'Lawrence' written in an almost childish scrawl. They had come to the right place.

"Looks like the door isn't even locked," Conner suddenly said. David looked up. The detective was righ; the battered front door was merely ajar. Pushing against it, it yielded, hinges screeching jarringly in the nightly silence. For a moment, David thought he'd heard something else – a wailing, keening sound. But when he paused to listen, everything was silent once again.

"Everything all right?" Conner asked when David didn't follow him inside the house.

"No, not really," David couldn't muster the energy to lie anymore. "I just thought I heard something. I think it came from inside."

Conner shrugged. "I didn't hear anything. Are you having second thoughts? Us going in here could get the case thrown out of court one day."

"Trust me, that is the last thing I'm worried about right now." David followed Conner into the house.

He had walked only two steps past the door when he saw it. "Stop right there," he ordered. Conner twitched, but didn't move. "You stepped in it. There is blood on the floor. It hasn't fully dried yet. Someone's been here."

There was a fair amount of blood, not just on the floor. Strewn on a nearby wooden table, the only piece of furniture in the room, were the contents of a first-aid kit, including several bandages stained with what looked like dried blood.

"I think we need to call this in," Conner finally said and, without waiting for a response, pulled out his mobile phone.

Leaving Conner to make the call, David quickly explored the remainder of the room, taking care not to disturb the scene any more than necessary. The room was empty, even the carpet had been torn out. There was a corridor leading further into the house and a flight of stairs leading to the top floor.

"I'll have a look around back. I think I smelled something bur-" David was cut off by a sudden noise—a high-pitched wail, coming from further inside the house. This time, David was sure of what he'd heard.

"Hear that?" David whispered to Conner.

Conner nodded. "I'll take the top floor." He pulled out his gun and headed over to the stairs.

David also pulled out his gun. Quickly but quietly, he made his way down the hallway, checking the rooms branching off to the sides. They were all empty and the thick layer of dust covering the floor suggested that no one had been in there in months.

David was returning to the living room when he spotted the closed door. Gun ready, he tried the handle. The door was locked.

"Nothing upstairs." Conner was coming back down the stairs.

David pounded against the door. "Anna! Charlie! Anyone in there?"

The response was faint, but it sounded like someone was crying.

David didn't hesitate and with one forceful kick, broke down the thin wooden door. It gave easily. Behind the door was a steep flight of stairs leading into a basement. Gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, David hurried down the stairs.

The air in the basement was musty and damp. He could definitely hear someone crying now. The basement was divided into several rooms. David followed the sounds to a room at the far end.

At first, he didn't see her. The figure was huddled in the far corner of the small, windowless room. The small body was shaking with sobs, face hidden behind the hands. David holstered his gun and put the flashlight on the ground. He kneeled down to be at eye level with the girl.

"Anna," he said softly. "It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a police officer. Do you understand?"

"Conner! We need an ambulance ASAP!" David called out, before turning back to the frightened girl.

"Anna, listen to me. Everything is going to be all right. I'm going to take you home." David took in the scene with a schooled glance. Anna was very pale. She was shivering slightly, but David wasn't sure whether it was from the cold or from fear. She was fully dressed, although her clothes looked much too large for a child. Aside from bruises around her wrists, David couldn't see any outward signs of injury. There were food wrappers and several empty soda bottles on the floor, confirming that she had been at least given food and drink. Someone had wanted to keep her alive. But if she was here, where was Charlie?

Anna slowly lowered her hands, just for a moment. David tried to smile encouragingly, while a million questions were racing through his mind. He forced himself to stay focussed on calming the terrified girl in front of him.

"You must be cold," David said softly, shrugging off his jacket and putting it down in front of Anna. He didn't dare touch her, not knowing what exactly she had been through. Anna gingerly reached out, then pulled the jacket close, hugging it tightly.

"Are you really a policeman?" sheasked, her voice so soft that David hardly understood her.

"Yes, I'm really a policeman. It's going to be all right," David repeated.

"I don't want to be in here anymore." Anna shook her head, tears running down her face again.

"We can leave anytime you want." David reached out a hand to Anna. She hesitantly took it. It visibly took effort, but she managed to get up. David knew she wouldn't be able to make her way up the stairs and he wouldn't have let her.

"It's all right, Anna," he said gently and scooped her up in his arms and started carrying her towards the stairs. He knew he was contaminating potential forensic evidence on her clothes, but he wasn't about to leave a frightened child in this hole. Anna's body was stiff in his arms, as she was clearly very scared and the darkness wasn't helping either, but David didn't have a free hand to carry the flashlight and Anna at the same time.

oOo

David returned to the living room as fast as he could. Anna seemed to have quieted down for the moment. The fact that Conner was nowhere to be seen worried David, but Anna had to be his priority until the paramedics arrived. He carefully settled on the floor with Anna still in his arms. When her head suddenly lolled back against his shoulder, he was already fearing the worst, but her pulse was steady and she seemed to be breathing all right.

A sudden, loud noise from outside moments later startled both of them. Not letting go of Anna for a moment, David got up to look out of the window just in time to see a car make a u-turn before speeding away into the night. It was the lilac pick-up truck.

Damn it, where was Conner? David was torn between staying inside and keeping Anna safe and looking for Conner, who might also be injured, or worse, lying somewhere outside. The pick-up hadn't been there when they'd arrived, so it must have happened when he was in the basement. He pulled out his cell phone with one hand and awkwardly started dialling. The premises would have to be searched thoroughly and then CSU needed to go over everything with a fine-toothed comb. If Anna had been held here, then so might Charlie. Maybe whoever had been driving the pick-up had planned to come for Anna and had been interrupted by Conner. David could only hope that the detective was all right.

It seemed forever until David finally heard sirens in the distance.

oOo

David met Agent Smythe at the local hospital. He'd accompanied Anna to hospital. Despite her obviously traumatized condition, she seemed to have accepted that David was one of the 'good guys'. The paramedics had agreed that it was best to expose Anna to as little additional stress as possible for the moment and she'd seemed fairly calm as long as David was present.

"Coffee?" Agent Smythe asked David as she stood in front of a vending machine in the hospital hallway.

"Sure. It doesn't look like any of us will get some sleep any time soon." David stifled a yawn. "How is Detective Conner?"

"He's got a mild concussion and they'll be keeping him overnight, but they said we can talk to him now." Smythe handed David the Styrofoam mug. David took a sip. It wasn't exactly piping-hot, but still better than lukewarm. He followed the other agent down the corridor.

oOo

Conner had a fair deal of blood on his shirt and looked slightly battered around the edges, but he didn't seem in too bad shape. Mainly, he was angry at himself.

"How's the girl?" Conner asked the moment he saw the two FBI agents.

"Paramedics didn't find any serious injuries on the way, but they're only examining her now. Who knows what she's been through."

"I take it her family is on its way?"

"We haven't been able to reach them yet. They're here illegally and don't have a phone. But a family liaison officer from LA PD has been keeping in contact with them, so they should get the good news soon."

Conner sighed. "And I'm the one who let their daughter's kidnapper get away. Don't exactly fancy telling them that."

"Let's hope we catch them before that." David paused. "You up for telling us what happened?"

"Sure. I've got one hell of a headache, but I've had worse. There were two of them. Must have. I only saw the woman, but there must have been someone else. Because one minute I'm looking at a map, the next thing I know, I'm lying face down in the dirt." Conner winced. "Rookie mistake. I let my guard down around a beautiful woman."

"Can you start at the beginning, please?" Agent Smythe interrupted.

"I was outside, keeping an eye out for the ambulance when I smelled something burning. I went around back to check it out, but before I had a chance to find anything, I heard a car pulling up. Things are getting a little bit fuzzy there, but I do recall giving a woman directions. I think she might have been lost, or at least that's what she probably told me while her buddy knocked me over the head."

"Can you describe either of them?"

"Him I never saw. I don't even know for sure that it was a man. She was white, maybe forty, forty-five, with shoulder-length brown hair. That's about all I remember, sorry."

"So you don't think you would recognize her if you saw her again?"

"I might, but I probably wouldn't swear to it in court. Any lead at all on her?"

"Maybe. I got a partial plate number and it matches that of a lilac pick-up registered to Abby Lawrence. I went by her house earlier, but no one was home and she isn't answering the mobile registered in her name."

"Have you tried finding her husband?"

"No joy. He's nowhere to be found either."

"We should search their house," David suggested.

"I'm not sure that we have enough to get a warrant. Maybe if CSU turns up anything at the house in Greening that gives us a solid link to Abby and her husband, we can go to a judge tomorrow."

"Make that today," Conner remarked. "It's past two in the morning already."

David ignored him. "I don't think we can wait that long. We need to get over there now!"

"I'm with you," Conner said and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

TBC


End file.
